


set my eyes to the wind

by thisstableground



Series: less than ninety degrees [8]
Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Depression, Everyone Needs A Hug, Multi, Recovery, Trauma, but especially usnavi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-12-25 08:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 41,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12031692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: Usnavi recalibrates. Vanessa, Ruben and Sonny help out.[Immediate sequel toto the bone i'm evergreen, read that first][December 2017]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [a/n: i feel like usnavi needed a bit more resolution on things that would've disrupted the pacing of ttb, and since this somehow ended up being 12.5k i guess i was definitely right there - you had your well-planned plotty fic, back to your regular thisstableground content of meandering but hopeful emotional introspection. warning for aftermath of assault, and depression, nothing graphic.]
> 
> [title from eyes to the wind - the war on drugs]

Six AM on Sunday, Usnavi’s dressed and trying unsuccessfully to find a nearly matching pair of socks when Ruben stirs slowly awake and frowns at him.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“These are called socks,” Usnavi answers, holding one up. “People wear them to keep their feet warm and to hide how ugly toes are.”

“Ha ha, smartass,” says Ruben. “Why are you dressed, I mean?”

“I have to—“ and then Usnavi realises wait, no, he doesn’t have to go to work. There was a whole party for him yesterday and everything, remember? He sits heavily on the bed. Vanessa makes an incensed sound without seeming to wake up at all. “Oh. Right.”

Ruben frowns harder, then pulls himself up sitting with a tired little grunt. “Kitchen? We don’t wanna disturb Sleeping Angry here.”

“I’ll end you, Marcado,” Vanessa threatens with her face in the pillow. There’s every chance she’s still completely asleep. Vanessa’s early morning grumpiness is a deeply embedded reflex.

“Come on. I’ll make you coffee,” Ruben says, getting out of bed and taking Usnavi’s hand along the way.

Usnavi’s all unbalanced: this is his first day of unemployment since long before he was an adult. It stretches out empty in front of him, though really there’s plenty to do, clearing the last of the stock out of the bodega and all, but there’s not coffee and routine and a well-learned schedule to stick to so it might as well be written into the diary Usnavi doesn’t actually own as _to do:_   _who the fuck knows, 6am till (???)._

At least he knows how to do this part, so he softly hip-bumps Ruben away from the coffee pot to take over. Ruben sits at the table and doesn’t say anything till Usnavi’s finished. Then he holds his hands over the top of the mug, letting the steam rise up to warm them, and asks “how’s the voice today?”

“Better?” Usnavi says tentatively, testing it out. It burns but not too bad, so he confirms more decisive “yeah, better. Still sounds like I’m smoking ten packs a day, but it hurts less.”

Aw, shit, and how much does he want a cigarette? He’s been wanting one for days, but no, Usnavi’s been stripped of distractions. Can’t sing, can’t smoke, can’t go to work. Can’t avoid Ruben looking him over with a critical, medical eye.

“Anything else? Any breathing problems?”

“No,” says Usnavi, but then he remembers that he’s trying to keep things honest. “Um, not really.”

Ruben’s reaction is predictable, but Usnavi still twitches at the noise when he slaps his hands against the table and demands “‘Not really’? What the hell does that mean?! When? Why didn’t you say anything? I wasn’t fucking around, Usnavi, you have to take your health seriously, especially with this.”

“It wasn’t—it wasn’t a physical thing,” says Usnavi. “Like ninety percent sure it wasn’t? I think it was a freaking out thing. I was in the store and looking at where he…where I was fighting with him and I was thinking about it.”

“Oh,” Ruben says, and then his whole body slumps sadly. “ _Oh_. I see.”

“It’s okay. It wasn’t like the one the other day, I thought about something else before it could get too bad. And I’ve been in fights before. N-B-D.”

Ruben looks even more upset, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes and sighing. “Can you  _stop_ …Usnavi. I really need you to be honest about this.”

“Goddammit,” mutters Usnavi. “That wasn’t on purpose. I am trying, I swear. I’m just better at trying to be positive.”

“Think of it as a more long-term trying to be positive,” says Ruben. “How do you feel about it?”

“I feel fucking  _stupid_ ,” says Usnavi quickly before he can overthink it. “It’s dumb to be this hung up on it, he just did one thing to me for like ten seconds. Compared to what I know he could do, what he  _has_  done - yeah, I know, not a competition, but you asked me to be honest, so I’m telling you honestly I feel stupid, but I am allowed to be freaked out, right? I couldn’t breathe or do anything to make him stop and then everything started to go all fuzzy and I was  _scared_ , and if Vanessa hadn’t—if she hadn’t—“

_”_ Respira _,”_ Ruben reminds him sharply and fuck, yeah, his lungs don’t feel full enough, he _hates_ this. “Slowly. Estás a salvo _._  You’re allowed to feel however you feel about it.”

“I didn’t think it would be so painful,” says Usnavi. “When you see it on tv people sort of cough a bit and then next scene they’re fine, but Jesus, it hurt like  _hell_.”

“I know,” says Ruben. Of course he knows. What a thing for them to share.

Usnavi goes to say something and it sticks in his still-sore throat. Ruben makes an encouraging noise.

“What if he followed me,” Usnavi whispers, like if he says it too loud someone might overhear. “He found us at my place, not yours. What if I led him straight to you?”

Ruben tangles his legs together with Usnavi’s under the table. “What if he found out where I worked, what if my mom told someone who told someone else and word got around and he figured it out from there, what if he’s known where I am the whole time?” he says, and then he twists his coffee mug around in his hands. “What if I’d never texted him in the first place, would you have been safe then? Is it my fault you got hurt?”

“No! It’s on him that he’s the worst person ever.”

“Then it’s not your fault if he did follow you,” says Ruben. “That was a choice  _he_  made. We can’t do the what-if game, Usnavi, we’ve both been too far down that road before. You know it doesn’t lead anywhere good.”

“I know,”says Usnavi, “but I can’t help thinking it anyway.”

“Yeah,” says Ruben. “Me neither.”

There’s the sound of a door being opened clumsily and a quiet “ugh, fuckin’… _fuck_ ” and Vanessa makes her way into the kitchen, yawning. She picks up the coffee pot and takes a swig directly from it.

“‘Sup?” she greets them.

“Early morning emotional honesty,” Usnavi answers.

“Ew,” says Vanessa, takes the entire coffee pot and goes straight back to bed.

***

The mirror in the bathroom gets Usnavi sidetracked on Monday morning just as he’s about to shower. The water’s already running but Usnavi’s standing in front of the basin instead, cataloguing bruises with a detached fascination, dark purples-blues-greens billowing on his skin like watercolor paintings of a stormcloud. He’s used to being constantly littered with light little bumps and scrapes from day-to-day life and clumsiness. These are deep and dark and deliberate.

The one across his face looks the worst. He doesn’t even remember getting hit there. It makes him look not like Usnavi, but it’s not the one that’s bothering him, and neither are the scattered places where Jason threw punches and elbows or where he threw Usnavi to the floor. It’s the shadow of where Jason grabbed his neck that his eyes keep wandering to, despite the fact he has to lean in close to see the details properly now. He thinks there’ll be a handprint there for a while even after it turns invisible.

It was just a fight. This happened to Ruben more than once. And so much worse, and so much more, what right does Usnavi have to be in a stat about things?  _But would you say that if it had happened to Vanessa,_  says a chiding voice in his head that sounds like Ruben, and Usnavi admits that no, he wouldn’t.

At least they’ll fade. What would it be to stand like this and look at yourself all beat to hell and know it was forever? Ruben says he’s used to his scars by now. Usnavi doesn’t think he’d ever get used to it, if it were him.

He hopes Jason still has Usnavi’s bite-mark in his fucking arm. Bastard.

“You nearly done?” Vanessa calls through the bathroom door, and Usnavi realises he’s just been lurking around the bathroom naked with the shower running not doing anything, and that he can’t be bothered to rush through one now.

Vanessa gives him a funny look when he leaves the bathroom completely dry and clearly not washed up.

“The hell were you doing in there?”

“Spaced out, forgot to shower,” he says, and she searches his face like she thinks he might be messing with her.

“You wanna go back in?” she asks. “I can wait.”

“Nah,” says Usnavi. “I’ve got nowhere to be, I’ll do it later. You gotta get to work.”

When Vanessa and Ruben leave together to catch their trains Usnavi waves them off and then stands looking at the closed front door blankly. There’s a silence so vast it takes several seconds to sink through him properly, but once it does he rushes to the living room so fast he almost trips over himself, to where he’s moved the old radio that used to be in the bodega. He turns the volume and the tuning dial at the same time, and the shrill squeal is piercing but at least it cuts through the quiet.

Usnavi used to sleep in a room so small that it wasn’t even technically a bedroom on the lease, barely big enough for a single bed. Silence is a memory of waking up in that bed to something deeper than just the absence of his mamá singing in the kitchen. She hadn’t been well enough for that for a while, but now there was no coughing, nobody shuffling to the bathroom, no sound at all from his parent’s room, and there was part of him that just  _knew_. It took everything in him to make himself open their door and face whatever was waiting behind it.

It took him almost a year to let himself move into the big bedroom. He replaced their bed before he did. His old room is just storage space now.

The radio settles to a station reliving the early 2000’s. Usually he’d sing along and that alone could keep him entertained for hours but it’s not an option now. He’s supposed to go back to have his voice checked, make sure there’s no permanent damage.

It’s not easy to lose himself in Destiny’s Child when he’s just lip-synching, because that’s no way for a boy to be the best Beyoncé he can be so why even try if you’re gonna half-ass it? And he keeps thinking he hears something underneath the music. A door opening that turns out to just be the percussion track. A background vocal that might be masking the distant faint sound of his own name being called, but every time he kills the volume to try and hear it properly there’s only the sound of his own breathing.

After the fifth time, he doesn’t turn it back on again.

***

Vanessa takes a work from home day when Usnavi has to go back to the doctor to make sure his entire esophagus isn’t about to collapse or whatever it is they’re looking for, and Usnavi doesn’t bother insisting that he’s fine to go alone. He’s glad she’ll be there with him, just in case it turns out something’s real fucked up in there.

“It sounds like it’s getting better, though,” she says as she takes her coat off the hook in the hallway.

“Yeah. It’s kinda sexy, actually, don’t you think? Got an edge to it. Heeey,” he says, testing out a husky growl. Vanessa rolls her eyes. “Hey, girl, are you a parking ticket, because you—”

“That wouldn’t work on me even now we’re dating,” she says. “Hurry it up.”

Usnavi shrugs into his coat and wraps his scarf around his neck. A shock of confusing terror that sounds like the screeching midpoint between radio stations later and he’s sitting on the floor with Vanessa unwinding the scarf and saying his name, high and frightened.

“No scarf then, maybe,” Usnavi says, shakily, and Vanessa sits back on her heels, shaking her head. “Mierda, I was not expecting that to happen.”

“Me neither,” says Vanessa, blowing a loose strand of hair out of her face. “Jesus. Are you okay?”

“Give me a minute,” he says, and sets up an inner rhythm like the one they do for Ruben, and after three counts of that he nods decisively and stands. “Aite. We’re gonna be late.”

Finally some better news when they’re done with all the checking and the testing: the doctor types something up and then turns her chair and smiles at him. “Well, Usnavi, it seems like you’re healing up quickly. Surprisingly so, actually, considering the information we got from the urgent care service. You’re a pretty lucky guy.”

“Felt a lot luckier before the part where someone tried to strangle me,” he disagrees.

She laughs politely then turns serious, leaning forward in her chair. “So everything is progressing well physically, but I also want to ask how you’ve been coping psychologically. How are you feeling?”

Great question.

“I guess I feel. Um. Weird? In a bad way?” She probably wants something less vague but he’s struggling to even describe it to himself. “I don’t really know.”

He looks pleadingly to Vanessa, and Dr Whitman nods encouragingly at her too. Vanessa grits her teeth and looks up at the ceiling, but she helps him out anyway.

“He’s been pretty jumpy,” Vanessa says. She sounds calm, but twists her hair in her hands, agitated like when she’s talking personal stuff about herself instead of Usnavi. “You know, getting surprised by unexpected noises and touches. Sleeping badly. Mood swings. He’s not spending much time with people except us, or listening to music or any of the stuff he usually does.You’ve been so  _quiet_ ,” she says, turning to Usnavi. “I mean, the voice thing, but you’re acting quiet too, if that makes sense? Not so—“ and she does a big expanding movement with her arms, like an explosion. “—not so Usnavi. And half of this shit was going on even before Jason pulled his ugly ass out of the sewers to come fuck with us, now I think of it, but it’s definitely kicked up a few notches since.”

It sounds pretty bad when she lists it all like that. He stares in surprise at her:  _wait, really, all of that is me_? and she shrugs back like  _yeah, sorry to break it to you_ and adds, talking to the doctor again, “He had something like a flashback, earlier? It didn’t last long, a minute maybe. But it took a while for him to know I was there when I said his name.”

“I put a scarf on,” Usnavi explains. “I guess, having something round my neck…”

Dr Whitman nods understandingly. “It might help to know that none of this is unexpected, given the circumstances. Events of this nature can be very traumatic, far more so than most people realise. You said some of these symptoms were present before you were injured?”

“It’s been a tough time recently,” says Usnavi. “A lot goin’ on.”

“Then it may well be that you’re dealing with the aftermath of the attack on top of a period of depression,” says the doctor. “It’s no surprise that you feel, ah, weird.”

“But…but I don’t  _wanna_ be traumatized or depressed,” Usnavi says. He’s mostly just baffled. Neither of those words make sense about him. That’s not who he is.

“Not many people do,” she answers, with a small smile. “There are things you can do to help yourself feel better.”

“We have a, a friend,” Usnavi tells her. “The one who knew the guy who I was fighting with, I told you about him. He’s got a lot of stuff, PTSD, it’s a long story. Am I going to— I don’t want to—”

He can feel Vanessa’s eyes looking right inside his thoughts. Is there a nice way to say _I don’t want to be like Ruben_?Usnavi loves Ruben, every last fractured line and scar of him, but frankly the inside of his head sounds like it’s at least pretty large chunks of total hellscape and it’s not a look Usnavi wants to introduce to his own interior decor.

“I’m not in a position to give you any in-depth insight, I’m afraid,” Doctor Whitman responds to his unfinished question. “Especially not after just one conversation. But I can say that not all traumatic events lead to PTSD, and it’s only been a relatively short time since it happened. You’re still coming to terms with it. A good support system in the early stages can make all the difference. You might want to get in touch with our counselling services.”

“I’ll think about it,” says Usnavi, taking the pamphlet of contact information she offers him. He’s lying, though. He’ll give in to Ruben and Vanessa’s insistence about doctors when it might be his life on the line since he’s super not down with the idea of dying, or of the big  _we told you so_  that one of them would probably have carved into his gravestone, but he sure as shit can’t afford  _therapy_.

He feels better anyway, though. It’s one thing for Vanessa or Ruben to say that it’s okay to need some time, but this is an actual medical professional telling him he’s allowed it too. They’d only explained the situation vaguely because the details are too complicated: Jason abused and almost killed their friend, he’d been stalking him, and Usnavi intervened when things started to get physical. An attack, she called it, not treating it like some macho-bullshit mutual scrap outside a bar, and it  _was_ an attack. Jason came and invaded their lives and their personal space and Usnavi's home. It wasn’t  _just_  a fight, and he’s not overreacting, and he has a good support system, the best in the whole world.

***

It would probably be a good idea to  _not_  sit around in his silent apartment ruminating endlessly but when Usnavi heads out to go for a morning walk, the grate is raised on the storefront and he can see contractors standing in the gutted insides, walking around and pointing and measuring things and other builder-y stuff.

Usnavi stands paralysed with fury for a second - that’s  _his_  store, he didn’t let them in, what are they doing?! - and then turns right around and goes back inside his apartment.

There’s boxes of unsold stock moved from the bodega piled opposite the boxes of random packed-up apartment crap in his living room. He still hasn’t found a new place. He can’t imagine anywhere else being his home.

Then again, there was a time he’d come back here or stand in the store alone and think,  _this was supposed to be ours_ , and the transition to  _this is just mine now_  seemed impossible, to the point where he barely recognised either place at all. He spent as long as possible at Abuela’s, and then he’d come back and lie awake in bed for hours and he could  _feel_  the emptiness of the big bedroom next to him until he couldn’t stand it and had to get up and leave.

This is something he told Vanessa and Ruben about a few months ago, though not in very much detail: sometimes just after he lost his parents he had things he needed to work out of his system. He’d walk around at one or two in the morning, one headphone in to listen to music and one out as a cursory attempt towards vigilance, but mostly people left him alone anyway.

And sometimes he pulled out a can of spraypaint to leave a calling card behind him, though he’d never thought of himself as the type of person who’d feel the need to do that before. But even back then gentrification was a creeping chokehold on the things he loved about the neighborhood, and Usnavi was young and grief-wrecked and losing home slowly and quickly both at once in different ways. So he dreamt about the warmer weather of Playa Rincón while he walked and wrote himself onto the walls of buildings to make the place feel like his again, in a messy transcription of those lyrics that pulled a place inside him even through the numb empty echoing, words to a rhythm that found the part of him that was still and always will be Usnavi De la Vega.

With work and time and noise and love, he made the apartment his, even the bedroom that used to be theirs, he made the bodega his. He kept it running even when it was difficult and he kept it the way his parents taught him, and he outgrew the rebel thing and regularly cleaned off every last smudge of spraypaint from his own building with a quiet simmering rage, because he knows what it means when they put it there. The taggers could have the whole rest of the city, but they’ve got no claim on Usnavi’s store, not even just their name on the grate. They hadn’t earned it like he had.

It’s not Usnavi’s store any more. He can’t picture making somewhere else a home. But he managed it here when it seemed impossible, once.

Digging a sharpie marker out of somewhere, he starts checking all the boxes of stock. He sets aside things to use for himself - Usnavi’s broker than broke and not gonna be richer any time soon, so he’ll make the most of whatever’s going. And there’s things he knows everyone else will appreciate: Ruben’s favorite coffee, a mostly-full box of Milky Ways for Benny and M&Ms for Vanessa. Soda for Sonny. He writes everyone’s initials on the packaging as a reminder to himself not to use them.

Everything left over Usnavi packs back up into empty boxes that he labels DONATE. He’ll take them to a food bank some time soon. He makes quiet little beatbox sounds to himself while he works, all plosives and sibilants with his teeth and tongue and lips so as not to aggravate his throat. It doesn’t fill the empty space, but the sound feels good in his mouth.

***

Usnavi’s never gonna get used to sleeping in, so he doesn’t even attempt it, especially not because Ruben never does either, not even on weekends. Since Usnavi’s got nowhere to be, it means they get to take their time over breakfast together.

Ruben asks how he’s doing, in that very specific way that means  _how are you coping_. Usnavi wonders if it should feel smothering that everyone's watching him eagle-eyed but he’s spent like a month quietly hurtling towards a breakdown so he’s actually pretty fine with feeling like people see him and have his back.

“I think I’m bored? I’m not used to not doing anything. But actually I have so much to do, but I don’t want to. Do I mean bored?”

“Um. Procrastinating?” Ruben suggests, and Usnavi makes a  _maybe_  face. “Unsatisfied? I’m not a words guy.”

“I dunno,” Usnavi says. “Could be both of those. I know I should do apartment hunting but I can’t concentrate properly. And doing it won’t make me feel good. All the stuff I  _should_  be doing is eh, but I don’t know what I  _want_  to do. I don’t really want to do anything right now.”

“Ah. Depressed, then,” Ruben says.

Usnavi shrugs. He’s not digging on that word, no matter if it’s the right one for what he is. “I guess.”

“Vanessa told me about the scarf thing,” Ruben informs him. Usnavi shrugs again. Ruben scowls down at an uneaten crust of toast on his plate. “I hate that you have to know this now,” he says, bitterly. “I hate that you understand it.”

Usnavi shoves down the irritated  _fuck you_  that tries to surge up out of his mouth, its presence an unwanted surprise. He never, ever wants to be the guy who’s a dick to someone trying to help him, but that takes on whole new levels when it comes to Ruben. Usnavi doesn’t think he’s really angry anyway, because he gets where Ruben’s coming from, he really does. You can’t blame the guy for drawing comparisons, or for feeling protective. But confusing and difficult to identify as they are, these are  _Usnavi’s_  feelings, not Ruben’s. Ruben isn’t the first person to feel fucked up about something.

“I understood more than you’re giving me credit for even before all that with Jason,” says Usnavi. “There’s things I’ve been dealing with since well before I knew you. I’m not a kid, or naive, Ruben. I’ve been in the world, I know shit.”

Ruben looks startled, leaning back in his chair. Usnavi’s almost expecting a defensive  _I know that!_ but he’s Ruben, which means he’s careful and he thinks things over, so after a moment he just says “you’re right. I’m sorry. I forget sometimes I’m not the only one carrying stuff around with me. Especially ‘cause you’re usually so…you.”

“I’m not always that me,” says Usnavi. “Feels like it’s been way too long.”

Ruben reaches out, hesitant, but at Usnavi’s nod he brushes the back of his fingers down Usnavi’s cheek, softer than rain and full of love. Usnavi closes his eyes, leans into Ruben’s hand gratefully. Goddammit, he can never stay even slightly annoyed at him for very long. Which in itself is actually slightly annoying, but Ruben’s so sweet that it’s just impossible.

“I wish I was helping you more,” says Usnavi. “You’re the one he’s hurt the most.”

“You are helping me,” says Ruben. “You do, every day since I’ve known you.”

“You were so incredible, telling him where to go,” says Usnavi. He’s said it a million times but he’s still tripping on the bravery it must’ve taken. “You were so amazing.”

Ruben smiles, but he looks distracted. “I don’t feel as bad as I feel like I should,” he says, seems to be talking to himself more than Usnavi. “That’s what’s bothering me most? I thought I’d feel so much worse if I ever saw him again. I know it’s fucked me up - relative to my usual scale, I mean - but it also still feels like,  _well, business as usual._  Is that messed up?”

“You gotta feel how you feel,” says Usnavi. “But I’m not surprised. You’re pretty badass for a total nerd, you can weather a lot of things out.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been through all this stuff before,” Ruben says. “So its not like I don’t know I can handle it this time. It’s easier now. And it’s not new, I’m used to having to put in effort to be happy.”

“I get that,” Usnavi agrees.

Ruben’s looking at him with an expression of sudden epiphany. “You do get it.”

“I like being positive,” Usnavi says. “I don’t think it’s possible to just  _be_  happy all the time, but it’s how I am to  _want_  it, and to work hard even when things don’t come easy, so that’s why I’m, y’know, me. I fucked it up this time, but I’ve been in some real bad headspaces before and found my way back. I just have to…change the tools I’m using. I’m still trying, I’m giving it everything I got.”

“I know you are. You do that with everything,” says Ruben.

“We can do this?” Usnavi says. It wasn’t meant to come out like a question.

“Yeah,” Ruben answers, confidently. “We’ll be fine.”

And then because it’s early, and it's Sunday, and Vanessa will be up soon, the two of them make breakfast for her. Ruben trails his fingers across Usnavi’s back when he passes by and Usnavi stand behind Ruben and wraps his arms around his waist while Ruben cooks bacon. Vanessa’s no less grouchy than usual when she first comes in but halfway through her breakfast she shakes her head like she’s just only just woken up and says “damn, I could get used to this.”

It’s only temporary, the way they’re living all on top of each other right now, but Usnavi could get used to it too.

***

Tomorrow is something Usnavi still keeps making a lot of broken promises for, all centred around the fact that, adventures through the wacky world of mental health problems aside, he’s really not doing a lot to sort his life out. Tomorrow keeps being the day he’ll do something useful, and it somehow keeps not happening. He'd hoped that would change after he spilled his heart about everything that's been going on, but he supposes that just saying  _I want to be back to normal_  doesn't make it instantly happen like magic.

He’s bored as hell, is the thing, itches to get outside, to do anything that isn’t just sit around by himself all day so he keeps making the promise that once he’s done all the Necessary Things he can do any amount of Fun Things. He says to himself,  _if I spend the entire day tomorrow looking for an apartment I can get it over and done with_  and then when that doesn’t work amends to  _I’ll try just spending the afternoon_  and then  _just look at one place today, Usnavi, just at least sit down and find some options._

But somehow he keeps blinking into awareness and realising that it’s evening, and the other two will be back from work any minute, and Usnavi’s not even sure what he’s been  _doing_ this whole time.

Vanessa gets home first today and Usnavi’s running into the hallway to greet her, hugging her tightly with a relief that feels like unravelling but he’s not sure whether that’s loosening tension or just Usnavi still having trouble keeping all his pieces together.

“You’re enthusiastic,” says Vanessa.

“Missed you,” Usnavi says against her neck before he can think better of it.

Vanessa rubs his back and says “you too” but she sounds worried and Usnavi’s worried as well, that he’s probably being way too much right now. Like, damn, he saw her this morning, be chill.

Later that evening Vanessa says to Ruben, “you should tell us if you need some space, Ruben, you can go sleep at your plac eif you’re feeling too crowded.”

Usnavi wonders if maybe she’s unintentionally betraying her own claustrophobia here. He might not have hit the bottle since that's not his kinda vice but he’s pretty sure that Vanessa finding him lying on the couch in a melancholy daydream half the time isn’t bringing up the good kind of childhood nostalgia for her anyway and he hates himself a little for doing that to her. 

They’ve been at Usnavi’s ever since the day he went to meet Jason alone, staying at his instead of switching between places or spending nights apart like they usually would. Ruben’s slept on the couch some nights, and others has started off in bed with them but later when he wakes up crying and Usnavi or Vanessa have talked him down, he’ll thank them before he goes off to the living room. Usnavi hates it when he leaves.

Ruben shoots a not at all subtle glance in Usnavi’s direction. “I’m good here.”

They’ve both always needed more alone time than Usnavi does. Sure, Vanessa’s gone off for solo walks or Ruben’s put in his headphones to zone out for a while a few times, or one of them will sit in his bedroom while he’s in the living room with the other. But they’re basically living in Usnavi’s place, they’re shouldering Usnavi’s laundry list of current anxieties as well as their own and he doesn’t feel like he’s doing his share.

“Are you just doing this because you think it’s what I want? Because I don’t want you making yourselves unhappy just to keep an eye on me,” Usnavi says. “It’s not gonna kill me for you to take a night off.”

Bad choice of words, maybe. Ruben and Vanessa both grit their teeth, looking unnervingly similar.

“I’ll be okay by myself,” he rephrases.

“Would you  _actually_  be okay, though?” Ruben asks, disbelieving.

It’s hard to be honest with them when even he doesn’t really understand what’s happening to him. Sometimes it seems to Usnavi that a lot of things he can only broadly sort into categories of  _feels_   _good_ or  _feels bad._ Which doesn’t matter so much with the good feelings, but it means the bad ones he doesn’t know if he’s coming or going with angry or sad or sometimes what turns out to be just hungry. It’s hard to fix a problem that basically manifests as a series of confused explosions.

But he thinks of the long empty day turning into a long empty night and then the two of them at work again until the evening after, and he thinks about his still-disrupted sleep and how he hasn’t shook the fear yet that he’s going to lose them or the fear that the choking could still kick in with one of those delayed catastrophic effects he’s been told are a possibility while he’s alone and this time someone else will have to be the one to open that bedroom door to silence. So even if he can’t find the word for it he knows the sensation.

“No,” he says. “I wouldn’t.”

“Then we’re staying here till you will be,” insists Vanessa firmly, and then adds “and thank you, for telling us that”, in an awkward but genuine mumble that he hasn’t heard in a while: she’s gotten used to being more straight up with things like this, for Ruben’s sake. Her voice doesn’t stumble over sincerity nearly so much any more. But he’s always loved her for her efforts, no matter what tone she uses, so he just cuddles up agains her gratefully.

She pets his hair but pauses straight away, then tugs it softly in a question. “Babe, no offence, but I’ve been meaning to ask. When was the last time you showered?”

“Uh,” he says, which is answer enough. He touches his own hair and  _ew_. Now she’s mentioned it he can tell he smells stale-sweat sour and awful and there’s actually a thin layer of dusty grime dulling his skin. Fuck, it can’t have been before Jason, surely? They’ve been sleeping in a bed with him, they can’t have been putting up with it for that long. Even  _he_  doesn’t want to sleep in a bed with himself like this.

It doesn’t take much persuading from Vanessa for him to head to the bathroom but it’s not until Usnavi’s standing under the spray that he realises how disgusting he’s actually been feeling. The water is warm and comforting, and it’s evening so he doesn’t have to save any hot water for the other two. He takes his time washing everything away, takes so long that Ruben knocks on the door to check he hasn’t died all over the bathroom. Not that Ruben phrases it that way, but Usnavi’s pretty sure that’s the concern.

“I’m luxuriating,” he calls back through the door too loudly, and then immediately has a coughing fit that Ruben starts making concerned noises about. He takes the volume down a notch when it stops. “Still alive! Hey, can you be an angel and change the sheets on my bed?”

“Fucking gladly,” Ruben answers, so obviously that’s been weighing on him. He probably thought it was pointless to put clean sheets on if Usnavi was just gonna get all unwashed up in them. Well, that’s his own fault for not saying anything before, really, Usnavi can’t be expected to remember  _everything_.

Even though he must be the actual cleanest human on earth by now he stays in there ten more minutes, alternating between standing sleepily eyes closed and looking down at his arms. The bruises are still angry but he can see the places they’re starting to fade, clouds dissipating with the patches of paler yellow-pinkish reflected sunlight that says the weather will change again soon. He hums to himself and the reverb off the tiles makes the melody sound louder than it really is.

***

Vanessa takes another work from home day, because, in her words, “you need to see the fucking sun, I’m dragging your Dracula ass to the park.”

“Does your boss know this is what you do when you say you’re working from home?”

“My boss knows that all the content is online when it’s supposed to be,” says Vanessa. “Which will be as true today as it is any other day. We’ll get something to eat and call it a long lunchbreak if it makes you feel any better about my work ethic.”

There was a frost on the ground this morning. It’s probably going to snow sometime soon, if it’s not too cold for it. Usnavi breathes out condensation and watches it hang in the air. He really wants a cigarette, but that’s only because he decided this morning that since he’s not been able to smoke since the strangling thing anyway he might as well use this opportunity to quit again, which immediately made it the only thing he can think about. Ruben says the nicotine will have left his system after about three days so cravings will be mostly psychological by now.  _Everything’s_  fucking psychological with Usnavi at the moment.

“I’m walking in the park on a weekday,” he says, swinging their joined, gloved hands up into the air. “The hell’s up with that? It’d be the midday rush at the store right now.”

“Living free,” Vanessa concurs. “Shit’s crazy. But it feels good to be out of the apartment, right?”

“Yeah,” says Usnavi, looks at her tipping her head back with the wind so it tugs the loose strands of her hair underneath her beanie. This was probably not just a day for Usnavi. Vanessa’s not made to spend her life cooped up and Usnavi isn’t meant to spend his alone. They both needed this.

“We should go out dancing sometime soon,” he suggests.

Vanessa’s eyes light up but then she frowns, not as excited by the idea as Usnavi hoped.

“You sure?” she says. “We don’t have to if you aren’t ready for that kind of environment.”

Irritation flares up again. “As long as nobody chokes me in the club I’ll be fine.”

“Usnavi, that’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” he says. “I’m trying like hell to be real about stuff right now, so I gotta say straight up I’m not enjoying how we all keep acting like I’ve turned into Ruben.”

“Well,  _haven’t_  you?” snaps Vanessa, then sighs. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I don’t know why I—you gotta realise this is a fucked up situation for everyone, Usnavi. You really scared us, more than once. And now we’re trying to help you and to keep you safe but…it’s like when you went to meet Jason and we couldn’t get in contact. Like you’ve gone somewhere and I just have to wait for you to come back to us and hope you’ll be in one piece when you do. I don’t know how else to deal with something like this other than how we do with Ruben. I’m seriously out of my depth here.”

“You have been helping,” he says, anger gone as fast as it came. She’s holding so much for all three of them, it’s not Vanessa’s fault she doesn’t know what to do. Usnavi’s just as lost as she is. “I’ve been doing it to myself as well, anyway. This is new, I get it, I don’t wanna sound like I’m not grateful. But my life’s not the same as his, I’m not the same as him. I don’t need to be somewhere quiet right now, I need the opposite. This last month or however long it’s been since I started losing my shit I’ve—hm.”

He doesn’t know if he should say it because it might sound pretty insulting, especially now when they’re doing so much for him, but Vanessa says “you can tell me anything, Usnavi” so fuck it, he will.

Usnavi presses his thumb to his lips and grimaces and he says “I’ve been really fucking lonely.”

Vanessa flings her arms around him, so hard it knocks him sideways.

“Oh, honey, I wish we’d known sooner,” she says. “I wish you’d told us. I’m sorry we didn’t see it.”

He can’t help but laugh. “If I didn’t know that’s what it was myself then how would I expect you to, querida _?_  I was ignoring too much and keeping too much to myself, that’s not anyone’s fault. And now I’m trying to do different and get back to being normal. I think it’s getting better? Not fast, but I don’t feel so…like,  _woosh,_ any more.”

_Woosh_  isn’t the most descriptive word for it. But it’s an accurate onomatopoeia for the feeling of falling and the feeling of being in standstill while the world speeds around him and the sound that drowns out calmness when things are overwhelming, so it’ll do.

“Okay then,” says Vanessa. “No secrets, no being alone, and definitely more fun. So we’ll go out dancing together and then later you can tell me all about who you’re secretly crushing on.”

“It’s Ruben,” he says, stage-whisper. “He’s got a great ass and a tolerable personality. Ssh, don’t tell anyone.”

“Cross my heart,” she says, doing exactly that. “Anyone else? Maybe one particular lovely lady with endless patience and great hair and charm for days?”

Usnavi says, “I don’t think I know her, can you introduce us?” Vanessa pulls his hat down over his face.

***

The front door opens two hours before anyone’s due in from work and Usnavi instantly rolls off from where he’s lying aimlessly on the couch and casts his eyes around for anything heavy he could use as a weapon when a voice yells “USNAVI DE LA VEGA”.

Sonny pauses in the doorway on seeing Usnavi shift from a defensive position to pretending he’s just standing around in the middle of his living room like that’s a normal thing he does, and says, “shit. Did I scare you?”

“ _No_ ,” Usnavi says. “Except, yes, actually. ‘Sup?”

Sonny hugs him. Usnavi clings on tightly.

“You look rough, cuz.”

“Hey, I’m clean and dressed, ain’t I? Were you expecting a tux or something?”

“Yes,” says Sonny. “Why have you been ignoring my texts?”

“I don’t know,” Usnavi answers honestly.

He’s been ignoring  _everyone’s_  texts. And then missing them desperately, and continuing to not reply, like he’s trapped in a game of chicken with himself over how long he can string out feeling like shit about being on his own. Like holding a hand over a flame just to test how long you can stand the pain of it.

Sonny looks about ready to burst with whatever he wants to say and Usnavi doesn’t know if he can handle a heart to heart right now, but all Sonny ends up asking is “you wanna hang out and mess up Ruben’s Netflix recs with shitty kid’s TV?”

“Yes,” says Usnavi, relieved. “Yeah, I really wanna do that.”

***

The sex life’s been on hold for a while because Ruben needs some time to get over the Jason thing getting mixed up in his head with the Ian thing, and Usnavi’s not had a night with just Vanessa and—well, okay, if he’s being honest, right now business is not booming in that department anyway, you get what he’s saying? And god knows he’s  _tried_ , because he just spent days in his apartment by himself with nothing better to do, but apparently that favorite hobby of his isn’t gonna play. He looked it up and it’s more of a common stress reaction than he would’ve thought but way to kick a guy when he’s down. He’s not gone this long without coming since he discovered the magic of his own hand.

It’s been easy ignoring it while nobody’s feeling it but now they’re in bed cuddling when Ruben’s goodnight kisses start to heat up, his tongue sliding deep and suggestive into Usnavi’s mouth while Vanessa traces meaningless, insistent patterns low on Usnavi’s stomach.

There’s not even a twitch.

_Why must you always betray me_ , he thinks to his dick, which totally ignores him. He’s popped a boner at so many esoteric things that Ruben and Vanessa insist they’ve got a whole list hidden somewhere but now that one would in fact be appropriate, apparently it’s hibernation time.

Vanessa's fingers wander below his waistband and Usnavi pulls her hand out immediately before it gets very far, sighing unhappily into Ruben’s mouth. They both move back to look at him quizzically.

“No?” Vanessa asks.

Usnavi stares down at his hands and admits “things in that area aren’t…functional, at the moment, to be honest.”

“Ohhh,” says Vanessa. “Shit, dude. Uh, I’m sorry to hear that?”

He can’t see her face clearly at this angle but he’s pretty sure she’s giving Ruben a look that means  _you have one of those, you deal with this one._

Ruben taps his burning cheek. “Don’t be embarrassed, Usnavi,” he says, sincerely.

“Oh, don’t be embarrassed about this hugely embarrassing problem?”

“You’re very stressed right now. Psychological factors are the most common cause of erectile dysfunction,” says Ruben, word for word matching the site that Usnavi found this information on before. Usnavi blushes even more.

“Do you have to just  _say it aloud_  like that?”

“It’s just how bodies work sometimes. I’ve had it happen before too.”

“That’s different.”

“Before Jamaica too. Before IMH, even,” Ruben clarifies, then shrugs at Usnavi’s dubious look. “PhDs are pretty intense. Me and sex have a weird relationship anyway.”

“Oh. Huh. Okay,” says Usnavi, and he actually believes Ruben, and that kind of does help, as does the fact that Ruben doesn’t seem at all phased talking about it. “So I guess it’s just a wait it out thing?”  
  
“Pretty much,” says Ruben. “Sorry I don’t have a more practical solution but trying to push yourself will just make you feel worse. It’s really okay. You’ve been through a lot recently. I’m not ready to go very far again either, yet.”

“You know how we do,” says Vanessa. “No rushing. No pressure.”

It’s usually something they mostly have to repeat for Ruben, far less often now that he’s grasped the fact they really mean it and he’s always allowed to say no. But it’s been a pretty good rule for all of them: Vanessa’s better at knowing and articulating what she’s not down with doing but Usnavi knows she finds it reassuring anyway, even if she doesn’t  _need_  reminding. Usnavi sometimes forgets completely that he’s allowed to go slow. It’s not that he doesn’t trust them with his limits if he tells them, it’s not a deliberate choice on his part or self-destructive or anything. It’s only that patience is so much easier to remember when he needs it for other people.

“I know,” he says. “And…thanks. Really. But like, fuck, it sucks that I can’t even have this. I like being that close to you both, I like you touching me. And I could use all the feeling good I can get right now.”

“We can still make you feel good without it being a sex thing,” Ruben says. He slips a hand under Usnavi’s t-shirt. “Tell me to stop if you don’t want it.”

But Ruben’s fingers dancing up and down his spine make him shiver with something that’s not desire that he still wants more of, and the feeling doubles when Vanessa’s hand finds its way into his pajama pants again, stroking over the bare skin of his hip.

Usnavi feels like he’s solar powered, sitting in the radiating sunshine heat of Ruben and Vanessa, feeling himself slowly recharge with the warmth of skin on skin. There’s not the sparking trail of nerve signals going straight to his dick but they’re so careful with him that he aches and needs in other ways. When Ruben starts to pull Usnavi’s shirt off he takes his time in case Usnavi wants to stop; Usnavi just lifts his arms so Ruben can get it over his head. Vanessa follows suit with his pants.

“We love you,” she tells him.

The sensations are clearer when he’s not dizzy with want. Ruben stroking his chest and Vanessa caressing over his thighs, no distractions, just their gentle fingers sometimes chased with gentle mouths. He’s still soft but Ruben cups a hand between his legs too, going a cautious kinda slow again and just letting it rest there. Usnavi lets his legs part a little more to allow it, wondering at how much he must trust them to be as certain as he is that this isn’t Ruben trying to kickstart a mood. They touch him everywhere and they look at him so intently like he’s brand new to them, even though they’ve seen him so many times before. He understands: he still so often gets that uppercut punch of a flutter sensation in his heart just like when he first started to fall for them, on infinite repeat and never getting old.

“Things are gonna be okay, Usnavi,” Vanessa says.

It’s not something unfamiliar, Usnavi naked between the two of them still clothed. He likes being watched, he likes being seen. He likes it in this new context too. There’s always been so more to what they do than just fucking, of course, but this is the sharpest, sweetest reminder: there’s nothing hidden of him here, they see him, they love him completely.

***

Usnavi’s a sensory mess of contented tingling touch-drunk before they finally settle into stillness, and he’s very nearly asleep when Ruben Marcado, Serial Bedtime Disruptor, jolts upwards and yells “motherfucker!”

Usnavi instinctively moves backwards to give him space and Vanessa asks urgently what’s wrong, but Ruben just lies back down and says calmly “it’s less than a week till Christmas.”

There’s a protracted moment where nobody speaks until Vanessa finally says, “I hate you so much.”  
  
Ruben leans up on his elbows again so Vanessa can see him stick his tongue out at her. “I totally forgot. I’ve not even made a fragment of a plan.”

“Me either,” says Usnavi. “I usually go to the Rosario’s but Kevin and Camila are going to Nina in California this year. They’re super hyped about it.”

“I usually go with my mom to Tía Martina’s house,” says Vanessa. “And I am never super hyped about it. It’s always real fucking shitshow.”

“…I don’t want to go to Ma’s house,” Ruben mumbles, squirming unhappily. “That’s where I’d usually be. We did Thanksgiving at Abuela’s in Rochester, so Philadelphia is where everyone's going for Christmas this year, we always alternate and it’s way too late to change all the plans. And  _he’s_  there, I can’t even pretend he’s moved on now. I miss my family. I really don’t want to go to Philadelphia.”

God,  _Ruben_. Usnavi’s never going to be over the unfairness, how it’s so insidiously worked through Ruben’s life that even things like spending a holiday with his mamá can be taken away. Jason fucking Cole, literally worse than the Grinch, who at least turned his shit around in the end.

“You don’t have to,” says Vanessa, sitting up. “I know you’ll miss them, but you can still be with family without having to leave New York.”

Ruben makes a puzzled face. “My cousin? Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy but he’s a nightmare to make plans with. I’m pretty sure it’d end with me showing up at his place on Christmas morning and him saying ‘oh, shit, that’s  _today_?’. And he’s staying with his girlfriend in Puerto Rico till New Year's, anyway.”

“I can’t tell if you’re serious or just trying to force me to say it out loud,” huffs Vanessa. “I meant us _,_ dipshit.”

Usnavi’s breath catches, not in the unpleasant way he’s been growing familiar with. He’s not spent a Christmas with Vanessa since they’ve been dating. He missed her so much the last two years, even though Vanessa kept sneaking away to video chat with him anyway. It wasn’t the same as being with her. It does mean that Ruben’s not gonna have to to hop in on established couple traditions, though. They can make their  _own_  traditions, all three of them. Holy shit.

Ruben looks just as blown away, either by the idea of them wanting to spend the holidays with him or by the word  _family_ , which is stupid because that’s obviously what he is by now butRuben’s gonna Ruben. “For real? But what about your mom and everyone?”

“Eh,” Vanessa shrugs. “They won’t mind too much. And if for some reason I miss them I’ll just sneak away to get secret-drunk on the phone with Nina while one of you yells and the other one accidentally sets half the presents on fire, it’ll be just like a Tía Martina party.”

“Sounds doable, other than the presents part,” says Usnavi. “I don’t know about you but I can’t actually afford Christmas this year. Hope you all like badly-wrapped overstock, because that’s what you’re getting.”

“I’m sure we can find something for you to set fire to,” says Ruben. “Fuck, okay, this is great. My mom won’t be too happy but Jason’s a pretty damn valid reason not to go back. She’s talking about bringing the girls here to visit in January anyway.”

“Oh! Can we meet them?” Usnavi asks excitedly. He’s spoken to Ruben’s mom a handful of times on the phone, been around in the background when Ruben’s Skypeing with her, but he’s never met Ruben’s sisters. He could show them round his city, all the parts of it that Ruben loves the most, all the parts of it that love Ruben in return, so they can see how good it is that Ruben’s got a home here.

“No, you can’t, I’m deeply ashamed of you both,” Ruben says, deadpan.

“Fuck you,” says Usnavi, rolling to face the other way and then immediately rolling back again just so Ruben knows he didn’t mean it. “Sweet. If that’s all sorted, I’m going to sleep.”

Five seconds later, a few missed connections in Usnavi’s brain make contact.

“¡Mierda!” he whisper-yells, trying to throw himself out of bed and getting tangled in the sheets.

“Can we all just not?!” Vanessa says. “What now?”

“My lease ends on the 1st,” he says, frantic. “That’s really goddamn soon. I don’t have anywhere to live, I’ve not even been looking! Fuck, fuck, what the hell am I supposed to do, I’ve just been screwing around packing and watching TV and going to the fucking  _park_ , what was I  _thinking_ , I don’t even have any money set aside for a deposit after all the doctor’s bills, I have to—“

He tries to get out of bed again though he’s not actually sure what he plans to do _,_  climbing ungracefully over Ruben who grabs him by the hips and says “Usnavi, stop!”

Usnavi does, and stares down at Ruben. “I don’t have anywhere to  _live_ ,” he repeats, anxiety shivering in his lungs.

“Well, we're not just leaving you to be homeless, dumbass.” says Vanessa.

“You're staying with one of us till you find somewhere more permanent,” says Ruben. “We can split your stuff between both our places if there’s not enough space. I…thought Vanessa told you that already and that's why you weren't looking?”

"I thought Ruben told you."

“Nobody told me nothin'."

“Oh. Oops,” says Ruben. “But yeah, Vanessa’s right. Not about the dumbass thing. Well, kind of —” he starts to amend, then smirks when Usnavi flicks him on the forehead. “Okay, okay. I mean she’s right that we’re not just gonna leave you to fend for yourself on the mean New York streets.”

Usnavi collapses in a relieved heap (“Ow,” says Ruben, underneath him.).

“I probably should have figured that,” says Usnavi. “Are you really definitely sure you don’t mind? I’ve already spent the past forever living up your asses every night, and this is my own fault for not getting anything sorted.”

“I’ve got no problem with falling over you and your boxes every time I turn around as long as it means you give yourself five fucking minutes break so you can get better,” says Ruben. It kind of still trips Usnavi out to think he has a thing he needs to get better from. “Finding a new place is difficult. I don’t want you to stress yourself into another breakdown about it.”

“Hell, I’m leaving in January, you can stay at mine the whole time I’m gone, if you like,” says Vanessa. “I’ve not got round to finding a subtenant yet and it’ll save me having to put any of my shit in storage. I assume you’re not gonna sell my furniture and run away with the money.”

“I ain’t got a job yet, I can’t afford your rent, Vanessa. Or any rent, actually.”

Even so, the idea that he might not be on quite such a deadline for this particular problem loosens a knot that’s worked itself deeply into his system, even if it doesn’t get rid of it. And it’s Vanessa’s place, somewhere he’s already spent years leaving safe memories like fingerprints instead of somewhere brand new, somewhere he won’t have to try and make into a new home while Vanessa’s all the way in California and can’t leave her own reciprocal imprint. He wriggles down more comfortably into the space between Vanessa and Ruben again.

“We’ll work something out,” Vanessa says, and sounds so nonchalant that it unpicks the knot some more. “Chill the fuck out and go to sleep, Usnavi. We got you.”

***

Ruben’s college finishes up for Christmas break, which means that Ruben is on hand to help Usnavi move some of his shit to Vanessa’s where he’s staying despite the rent: there’s just no room for him at Ruben’s, and it’d be fucked up for Usnavi and Ruben to move in together just as Vanessa was leaving. Vanessa kept blowing off his concerns about money, but he’s not got any other options yet anyway. They’re spreading the workload of moving out over several days because it seems less immensely freakin’ terrifying that way.

“Okay, I think that’s all we can fit for the first lot,” says Ruben, slamming the trunk of the rental car closed. “Keys?”

“I can drive if you want,” says Usnavi.

“I didn’t know you knew how.”

“Well, I have a license, at least,” says Usnavi. “Benny and Kevin both taught me. Kevin thinks I must have bribed the guy giving me the test to get a pass.”

“…I’ll drive,” says Ruben, holding his hand out for the keys. “Anyway, I don’t — um.”

He cuts himself off. Usnavi waits through getting in the car and Ruben starting the engine and adjusts his mirrors and setting off down the street. Patience is easy when it’s Ruben he’s waiting for.

“He put me in the back seat,” Ruben says, focusing very hard on the road. “On the way there and afterwards. I don’t like sitting in the back. I don’t even like it when we get in cabs, really. It’s okay in the front passenger seat, but it’s best when I’m in control of it, and I kind of miss driving anyway.” He checks the rearview and flips his indicator and takes a left. “I used to have a car. Sold it before I came here, doesn’t seem much point having it in the city and Ian —Jason, I mean, Jason knew my plates. So.”

Usnavi doesn’t drag the conversation out any further than that. It’s better to just let Ruben say his piece and sometimes ask if there’s anything they can do to make it easier, but the solution to this is probably just “don’t put him in the back of a car if you can help it” so that doesn’t need any immediate follow-up.

Ruben’s a confident driver even when he's out of practice. They get to Vanessa’s without any problem, and start unloading boxes.

It’s a pretty easy task once they get going, the kind of work Usnavi’s used to. Actually, it’s been a grip since he did anything physical, and it feels good to be moving around in a way that’s not just fidgeting, to actually be  _doing_  something. At some point during the third run back to his apartment he shakes out of the half-aware haze of productivity to realise how empty the place is starting to look and it feels like a band squeezing round his chest.

“Enough,” he says quickly. He’s already done this once with the store, too recently. This is why they wanted to take the process slowly. “I think…this is enough for today, please?”

Ruben kisses him softly. “Of course,” he says, taking the box out of Usnavi’s arms. “We’ll take this last lot to Vanessa’s and do the rest some other time.”

Usnavi makes the coffee when the rental is unpacked because Ruben’s complaining about how tired his arms are and insists it’s payment for his help. 

Once they’ve had their caffeine dose, Ruben stands up and starts shuffling boxes around, reading the labels scribbled across the top and then moving them aside, apparently searching for something specific.

“Whatcha looking for?”

“Aha!” Ruben says, lifting a box to the floor and settling crosslegged beside it while he opens it up.

“Aha?”  
  
Ruben pulls out a string of fairy lights. It’s the box full of Usnavi’s Christmas decorations. “We can’t do a tree without Vanessa here too but I don’t see why we shouldn’t make it a little more festive before she gets home.”

“Vanessa’s got a pretty specific aesthetic,” says Usnavi, looking around. Even with her limited budget Vanessa’s made the place gorgeous. “I’m not sure we’re gonna have any idea how to jam with that.”

“Nope,” says Ruben. “She will definitely hate whatever we do.”

He grins, that  _I’m a total shit and I know it_  one that Vanessa particularly loves, even though it usually means Ruben is fucking with her specifically.

“Oh, I get it. Alright! Let’s do this.”

Ruben looks surprisingly sparkly-eyed and upbeat as he starts unravelling the string lights. It’s a look that Usnavi always wishes he could find a way to make permanent, and more reassuring in Usnavi’s current situation than usual: even Ruben, sat here in the fallout of all the mess of recent events, can be contented. Usnavi suspects that possibly Ruben likes Christmas, which is somehow unexpected. It’s not Usnavi’s favorite holiday, but he could grow to enjoy it more.

He artlessly drapes tinsel over any surface flat enough to hold it. Ruben gives up halfway through trying to untangle the lights and winds them still in a knotted mess over the curtain rail.

“Does this look bad?” he asks Usnavi, switching them on at the outlet.

Usnavi squints contemplatively. “Yep,” he says.

“Cool. Hey, quick question, what in the hell is this?” Ruben asks, digging through the box again and holding something up.

“Reindeer head made out of clay,” says Usnavi. “Your new forever friend. Say hi!”

“I will not say hi,” says Ruben. “It looks possessed. Why do you have a clay deer head?”

“It was two dollars, how could I not? Perils of shopping for decorations at thrift stores,” says Usnavi. “But that’s life, ain’t it? Sometimes you get tinsel and glitter, sometimes all you get is a possessed clay deer head. I usually hang baubles off the antlers.”

“Of course you do. Where can we put it that it’ll be hardest to ignore?”

Usnavi considers their options. “Bathroom,” he decides. “Cabinet facing the toilet, so you know it can see everything you’re doing.”

“That’s horrifying,” says Ruben. “I love it.”

They go around haphazardly flinging sparkly bullshit all over Vanessa’s apartment and it’s just so ingrained for there to be music while he’s doing this that Usnavi doesn’t even notice he’s singing carols until Ruben joins in. He suddenly realises that his throat doesn’t hurt any more, although there’s an itchy feeling that tells Usnavi he still can’t give it the full production. So he’s not got the usual volume, and Ruben’s got a nice voice that he never raises very much because he refuses to believe he can sing. But their voices together are louder, and with the bright colourful lights twinkling and the knowledge that Usnavi’s going to spend the holidays here with the two people he’s in love with, there’s no room in this moment for empty, aching spaces.

***

There’s a lot of leftover things that are supposed to go on a tree but they’re waiting for Vanessa for that, so Usnavi’s given up on decorating the apartment and started just decorating the Ruben instead when she gets home.

“Dios mio, look at all this holiday spirit, what a fucking nightmare,” says Vanessa. “Lucky I brought some of my own.”

She steps aside and Sonny walks into the room, arms raised in the air triumphantly.

“Sonny!” says Usnavi, delighted.

“HO HO HO,” Sonny proclaims. “It’s me, Santa de la Claus! What the hell happened to Ruben, he looks like the unsuccessful direct-to-TV sequel to actual good Christmas.”

“Hi, Sonny. Are you finished school now?” Ruben asks, trying to unhook one of the baubles looped around his ear.

“Last day was yesterday, yeah,” says Sonny. “And I’ve come to you with glad tidings of great cousins. By which I mean it’s me, I’m the great cousin, the greatest cousin of all time forever.”

“That’s pretty harsh when I’m literally stood right next to you,” says Usnavi.

“Oh, you wait,” says Sonny. “You just fucking wait.”

“I can’t tell if this is a threat or a — uhhh, Vanessa, what are you doing?”

Vanessa’s got her phone out, pointed at Usnavi.

“Filming,” she says. Well, no shit, but that never means anything good. Usually it means Usnavi’s got himself into some kind of sitcom mishap. Like the time he got stuck in a swing, or the time he got stuck in a Pringles tube, or the time ( _times_ , multiple) he accidentally shut himself out on the fire escape and yelled at her through the window while she laughed and refused to help him. He’s definitely not stuck in anything right now, so it’s a suspicious situation.

“Why?”

“You’ll see,” she says. Sonny sits down on the couch and pulls out his laptop from his backpack. He glares at Usnavi trying to look at the screen and turns it away to type something, so Usnavi looks at Ruben and Vanessa instead while he waits: Ruben’s eyes have deep happy lines all around, and Vanessa’s mouth is doing that thing she thinks nobody notices when she’s trying to hide a smile.

“Siéntate your ass down and look at  _this_ ,” says Sonny, patting the couch next to him and then depositing the computer on Usnavi’s lap.

It’s one of those crowdfunding sites. Usnavi’s eyes are immediately drawn to the picture: an old candid he recognises from somewhere he can’t remember, him and Sonny behind the bodega counter with their arms raised and mouths open - he can tell just from looking at it that they’re singing.

“ _No_ ,” he says. “Is this…”

**Cause: Help Usnavi Find His New Home!**

“Did you have to phrase it like I’m a puppy at a shelter you’re tryna get adopted?” he says, but he’s touched. “You…got donations? For me? Sonny.”

“Read the bio,” says Sonny.

**About This Cause:**  
  
_Heads up! You all might have heard that the De la Vega bodega is closing soon._

 _We’re all gonna miss it - I definitely am - but there’s a reason this place is a goddamn institution, and that’s my cousin. Without Usnavi this place would have just been any other store, but he made it something special. You’ve spent your lives at his store, folks. You’ve bought your coffee every morning and it was perfect every time. You’ve been waiting on that paycheck and been able to buy groceries to feed your kids just on the promise that you’ll pay as soon as you can. You’ve been given a free candy bar with your purchase because he knows you’ve been having a difficult day. That’s how he always is, he’s the most generous person in the whole world and that’s why he should know how much we appreciate him. I don’t know where he’s gonna go next, but I know he’ll be amazing at it, so let's make this something better than a goodbye, let's help him make a great start to his new life!_  
  
Siempre,

_Sonny De la Vega (aka the other bodega dude, aka the cute one in that picture, aka me.)_

_(PS: try to keep it on the quiet ok it’d be awesome if we can surprise him with this!)_

**_Update (12/17/17):_ ** _Ok, this fundraiser started out just as a goodbye present from a few close friends but over the past few weeks Usnavi’s had a lot on his plate: he’s leaving his apartment and his job, he’s got some unexpected medical bills, there’s a bunch of stuff happening. So let’s step it up if we can. I know we all wanna see him have the life he deserves. It doesn’t matter how much or how little you can give, or if you can’t do money and just wanna hit him up with some well-wishes there’s an email link below and I’ll pass the message along. I know it’ll mean the world to him._

**_Update (12/22/17):_  ** _¡Dios mio look at all that goddamn dollar! You are all incredible. Gonna let him in on it tonight. I’ll be sure to show you his reaction.  
_

“Son _ny_ ,” Usnavi says tearfully, grabbing him in an aggressively grateful hug. Ruben catches the laptop and steadies it before it falls.

“Look,” says Ruben, and he taps at the screen. Usnavi follows to where he’s pointing, the number in the top right corner and—

Wait, that can’t be right.

“That’s not all for  _me,_  is it?”

“It is,” says Sonny, proudly. “Two hundred and six percent of the target goal and counting. Way more people wanted to say goodbye than I expected. And I expected a lot, to be honest.”

“That’s. I can’t, but, that’s…”

A  _lot_. Not lotto levels of money, Jesus, not even close. But enough that Usnavi’s medical bills are paid, enough that even if it takes him a month to find a job he can afford the rent at Vanessa’s place - and a couple weeks longer than that, in fact because they’re splitting January costs while she’s still in New York.

“I set it up pretty much as soon as you said you’d sold the store,” Sonny explains. “Asked Pete for a couple tips on how to get word out better once, y’know,  _everything_  happened, you know he's great at that kinda thing, and everyone really came through. I’m honestly surprised nobody spilled the beans, but I guess you’ve been kind of off the radar for a while anyway.”

“People got your back,” says Vanessa. “Always, Usnavi.”

She gets up in his face with the camera and asks if he’s got a speech for the people, but Usnavi’s kind of overcome right now. “Nnnh,” he says, making a helpless gesture with his arms waving. “I’m, no, nuh-uh.”

“This is what your money was really for, y’all,” says Sonny into the camera. “Knocked the words right out of him. A Christmas miracle!”

Usnavi looks between the three of them in front of him, Sonny looking extremely pleased with himself and Ruben impossibly fond and Vanessa laughing to herself. It’s too much so he looks back at the screen, but then he catches sight of the comments section scrolling down the side and that doesn’t help.

**Notes from donors:**

**Carla -**  [$40]  
WE <333 U ¡¡¡USNAVI!!! <3 <3 :D :D :D

**Estefanía -** [$100]  
¡Buena suerte, Usnavi! Has ayudado tanto a mi Rubén, ahora te ayudaremos nosotros. ¡Visitaremos ustedes todos en Nueva York muy pronto!

**Pete -**  [$20]  
compensasion for all that wall cleaning back in the day bro

And so many more, names he recognises or just anonymous, some leaving pocket change and some a lot more. He’ll have to read them properly later because if he tries it now he might literally explode.

“ _Feliz navidad_ ,” says Sonny.

“Say thankyou to everyone, Usnavi,” Vanessa instructs him, gently teasing. Usnavi looks into the camera, lip trembling, and says “buhwwwbl” or something like that.

“Close enough,” says Ruben.

“Thank you,” says Usnavi. He flaps his hands in front of his face trying to stop himself from crying, but too late so he shakes his head and lets all his tears fall, and laughs and cries and blows kisses to the camera babbling inanely: “thank you,  _gracias, gracias_ , I don’t—I can’t believe— gracias, alabanza, ¡os quiero mucho a todos! This is  _insane_.”

It’s not that the money itself is a life changing amount. It’s not nearly as much as the lotto money and even that ran out fast, though that’s mainly because he still had the store he needed to pour it all back into. This isn’t like the two week trip he took with Sonny to Playa Rincón on the winnings, not a vacation in that way.

It’s that so many people care about his future that he’s gonna be able to set down the building weight of all the things he needs to do so he can finally approach it in manageable pieces. It’s Usnavi, being able to look for a job without it being the difference between that or going without food, and even after that he’s got a few more months at Vanessa’s so he can scrape together a deposit for his own place. The constant internal clock that tells him life is short, life isn’t a promise is still ticking away but suddenly it’s also telling him that for now he’s here and he’s alive and he can stop panicking and cherish what he has. Christmas Eve, New Year’s, his fast-approaching birthday off work, he's never had all of them off in a row before. Going to the park in the middle of a weekday, staying out dancing as late as he wants.

It’s time, that’s what they've given him. He can rest. He can get better and happier and be Usnavi again. It’s not forever, but just for now, he’s got so much  _time_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [a/n: spot the extremely lowkey third fandom crossover. also fuck you i can write christmas fic in september if i wanna.]


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [same warnings as last chapter plus cw for some talk of ruben's past suicidal ideation/self-destructive impulses, and vanessa's mom's alcoholism, but nothing too explicit]

It feels like it’s been so long since anything was normal that Vanessa barely even remembers anything other than Usnavi’s apartment being quiet and confining. It’s not until Usnavi spends close to half an hour locked in the bathroom with the water running on Monday morning, so off-planet he forgets to actually shower, that she thinks _I need to get the fuck out of here for a while._ Never thought she’d be so grateful for the early train she has to catch.

Usnavi stands in the hallway watching her and Ruben, not saying anything. His voice is still messed, Vanessa knows, but that doesn’t shake the urge she gets to grab him by the shoulders and beg him to just pretend to be fine for like ten minutes so she feels less of a dick for leaving him all day.

But pretending to be fine, she supposes, is mostly how he got this bad in the first place. And she can’t just not go to work, so they both kiss him goodbye and tell him to call if he needs anything, and that’s that.

“Do you feel kinda like we just dumped a puppy at the side of the road?” she asks in an undertone to Ruben as they go down the stairs. “‘Cause that’s definitely how I’m feeling right now.”

“I’ve been feeling that way every time I so much as take a bathroom break,” says Ruben. “But we can’t just hide in his apartment forever, right? Maybe it’ll be good for all of us to start trying to get back to normal again.”

If they were trying to do that, though, Ruben wouldn’t snatch his hand away like Vanessa’s touch burns right through his gloves when she tries to take it on the way out of the building.

“Sorry,” he mutters, grimacing. “It’s not you. It’s, if _he’s_ still around. He already knows me and Usnavi are together, I’m not risking you like that too.”

There’s been no sign of Jason since that night in the bodega, but it _has_ only been like five days. A little paranoia probably isn’t too out of line. Vanessa tucks her hands into her pockets instead and they walk to the station like awkward acquaintances.

“Call me when you’re coming home,” she says to him once they’re there. “I’ll meet you here.”

“You don’t need to do that,” he says. “I’d actually prefer if you didn’t.”  
  
Right, right, _not risking you too_. Surrounded on all sides by fucking _chivalry_. “Call when you’re walking back so we know when to expect you, then.”

“Sure,” he says, then after scanning the still-thin but growing crowds, he determines that it’s safe enough to give her a lightning quick kiss on the cheek. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Ruben’s the one walking away at speed to make his train but it feels kind of like Vanessa’s abandoning him too, as she watches him glance around while he walks, turning his collar up to hide more of his face.

Maybe she should be keeping an eye out for Jason as well, but she doesn’t. The feeling of being alone in the crowd is too much of a relief to let doubt creep in to interrupt the peace: this morning, it’s just Vanessa and the sound of the train.

***

That said, she spends most of the day with her mind back in the barrio anyway. Ruben sends her a couple of updates: he made it to work okay, campus security knows to be on high alert, no sign of trouble so far. Usnavi does not send her any updates.

**Vanessa:  
** \- whats the gossip from HQ?

She suggested they should probably stay somewhere other than the one place the last person in the world they want to meet again knows where to find them. Usnavi and, surprisingly, Ruben were both pretty convinced that it’s better to stay at Usnavi’s apartment. Less chance of him catching them by surprise, less chance of him finding out more information like where Ruben actually lives, apparently. Vanessa’s pretty sure it’s just them both being stubborn bastards.

 **Vanessa:  
** \- usnaaaavi

Her phone sits silent on the desk while she tries to devote even half a braincell to whatever the fuck she’s doing right now. No news is good news, right?

 **Vanessa:  
** \- if i don’t hear from you in ten minutes im coming back home and you’ll have to explain it to my boss

 **Usnavi:  
** \- sorry querida forgot to reply  
\- im fine

So at least he’s not been kidnapped.

When Vanessa finally gets back to Usnavi’s, still irrationally worried that she’ll open the door and find him gone, she opens the door and finds it silent instead, which is almost as bad. Usnavi’s lying on the couch, sprawled out and still in his plaid pajama pants and an old white-ish tank top.

“Hey, babe,” she greets him, and he doesn’t answer. “ _Usnavi_ ,” she says loudly, and he jumps, his hands clenching into fists.

“Hey, querida,” he says, relaxing when he sees her. “You’re back early.”

“No I’m not? It’s gone six.”

“Oh,” says Usnavi, lamely. “Well. Okay then.”

He lies down again, eyes wandering back to the ceiling but she knows he’s really watching the inside of his own thoughts. Instantly it’s like she’s not even there.

Vanessa isn’t sure what it is that makes a sudden swell of resentment threaten to capsize her calm. It’s only been five days, she shouldn’t expect too much from him, and there’s been more than enough fighting recently so she chases another feeling instead: the burning need to cover Usnavi’s bare, bruised arms with something.

“Aren’t you cold like that?” she asks. He shrugs. Vanessa gets the feeling he didn’t hear the question. She gets him a sweater anyway, and the inexplicable anger and sense of danger both simmer to a manageable level as soon as Usnavi puts it on.

***

One, two, three nights in a row and Ruben wakes up crying. Better than screaming, at least, but in the words between him waking and adjusting to reality she catches their names _no, Usnavi, Usnavi, Vanessa I’m sorry I’m sorry._ Vanessa thinks she knows what he’s dreaming even though he never gives them details. She thinks she knows what he’s looking for when instead of pushing his back against the wall to make some distance like usual he runs searching hands over Usnavi’s chest, checking his palms like he’s expecting them to come away bloodied.

All three nights end with Ruben sleeping in the living room. When she creeps into the kitchen to get a glass of water on the second night she peeks in at him and he’s completely cocooned in a blanket, head and everything.

Vanessa’s learnt over her lifetime that there’s people who believe her body isn’t her own, and though she’s refused to let that take root in her own sense of self it doesn’t make it a fun experience. She thinks, like she’s thought a thousand times, about the cold angry shiver when someone’s too much up in her space or when she’s had to do that look that anyone out in a group of girls learns to read from right across the dancefloor - _come help me out, this guy’s a creep._ Ruben had his lesson about who his body belongs to carved into his skin, far harder to let slide away. Ruben’s had to find a thousand ways to feel hidden even from Vanessa and Usnavi, the only way he can know that he belongs to himself and nobody else.

Maybe that’s why she keeps getting the urge to cover Usnavi over while he mopes around the apartment in his pajamas and a tanktop. Just someone else's mechanism bleeding over. They’re all having trouble keeping themselves separate. She can see in her mind Usnavi pinned by Jason, and superimposed over it Ruben and Ian, as if it weren’t bad enough that it happened once, to one of them. Vanessa wants to reach into her thoughts and put a fucking sweater on that memory of Usnavi, like if she could it’ll echo back through time and keep them both safe. Like it would’ve been enough in the first place.

There’s more room in Usnavi’s bed when it’s just the two of them and usually after this long she’d have spent a night alone, so it should feel good. But the space where Ruben’s supposed to be is tangible, some hulking invisible presence almost big enough to knock her right out onto the floor.

***

One, two, three days in between the disrupted nights, Vanessa finishes work and Usnavi’s lying on the couch.

 _Come back to us_ , she thinks, but she doesn’t know where he’s gone or how far away it might be. Saying it out loud would be like shouting for him into the wind over a canyon.

Ruben sometimes looks miles away too, she tells herself, and that’s comforting because Ruben always finds his own way back, knew how to do that before they met him. Except, for all she’s seen Ruben exhausted or scared too many times, she’s never seen him apathetic. Usnavi seems maybe like he’s not looking for a way back at all. It’s infuriating, which is never a response she’s had to Ruben and not one she’s comfortable having now so she looks closer just to keep herself from snapping at him, forces her awareness to uncover more points of similarity.

She sees how even though Usnavi’s voice is coming back the place is still so quiet when she gets in. No music. Usnavi lives to a constant rhythm, no wonder he’s not dancing through life like usual. It doesn’t suit him: the quiet stretches out vast and there’s a paradoxical kickback feeling of claustrophobia making Vanessa’s skin itch. She sees how he flinches when the front door goes too loudly as Ruben gets home and it’s too clear why Usnavi might not be blaring the radio any more. There’s plenty of ways a person might want to hide.

 _Shit_ , these aren’t things Usnavi is supposed to ever have to think about. He’s not defensive like Vanessa and Ruben, Usnavi leaves bright imprints of himself everywhere like afterimage sparks on the tail of a comet. There’s been so many times she’s seen him and wished he’d be more careful with himself and his feelings and his heart, but part of her has always been convinced Usnavi’s untouchable.

He can come back from this too, right?

Vanessa loves Ruben’s careful, considered sweetness and the way he ducks his head when he smiles because that’s him, but she doesn’t want it to replace Usnavi’s unfiltered patter and wide-open mouth laugh. It was a mistake to start drawing comparisons between them. She doesn’t know why she keeps searching them out other than because every time she does the strange unaccountable twist of resentment eases up so that she only feels sad, and somehow that makes her feel like there’s a little more space in the increasingly suffocating apartment.

***

Vanessa suggests he get dressed and go outside, Usnavi says “maybe in a minute” and doesn’t move for an hour, and even then only goes as far as the bathroom. Vanessa suggests he have something to eat, Usnavi says “I already did”, indicating the growing pile of candy wrappers rustling around him on the couch. Vanessa stands up, Usnavi jolts upright to eye her worriedly and doesn’t un-tense until she tells him “I’m not leaving, I’m just getting a drink”.

Ruben sleeps in bed with them only intermittently, and strokes Usnavi’s unwashed hair without complaining about how gross it is, and cooks dinner, and doesn’t ever cry when he’s awake, and doesn’t roll his sleeves up in front of them, and checks the apartment door is locked and bolted at least ten times per night. Ruben says he’s doing okay whenever she asks.

Vanessa feels weird about the store being empty every time she walks past it, is dreading the day she passes the grate and sees that it’s been stripped of paint, is really not happy about the nostalgia all this change has dug up. Vanessa hates nostalgia and hates not sleeping in her own bed and hates Jason and hates going back to Usnavi’s stupid apartment with his stupid couch where Ruben keeps spending his nights because he can’t even let them touch him, and where Usnavi spends all day just lying there literally gathering dust. She _doesn’t_ hate Usnavi even temporarily, she never could, but she hates what he’s turned into, this small sad apparition with his soft, sticky-up hair hanging limp and his pajamas sweat-smelling and discoloured from constant wear.She’ll have to say something about that sooner or later. When she gets out of bed in the morning she can feel everything clinging to her too even after she showers it off, like that not-Usnavi shadow is following her around all day when she’s at work or taking a walk by herself.She can’t bring herself to make him sleep alone.

Think of any other word than _babysitting_ for what the current dynamic is. It’s as unfair as it is unsettling, but however hard she tries, she doesn’t come up with one. As long as she doesn’t say it aloud, then.

Usnavi makes a heartbreaking, frightened sound and his legs give out when he puts his scarf on, and Vanessa catches him under the arms and lowers him gently to sit on the floor. Usnavi’s eyes fill with tears that he doesn’t seem to notice when the doctor has to touch her fingers to his neck, and Vanessa holds his hand. Usnavi looks helplessly at her when the doctor asks how he’s coping and Vanessa lists all the ways he’s been so fucked up recently in a steady, clinical voice.

The doctor says trauma, the doctor says depression, which doesn’t fit with the general concept of Usnavi but it works way too well for the version of him sitting next to her, talking about Ruben and his PTSD.

“Am I going to— I don’t want to—“ Usnavi says, and then stops, with a sheepish glance at Vanessa. She gives him an encouraging smile to cover her own guilt.

Vanessa needs a fucking break.

***

There’s things that peek through like hints of blue sky on overcast days: sometimes Usnavi at least remembers to change his shirt, sometimes she’ll wake up and the boys will have made breakfast for her, sometimes he’ll still crack his dumb jokes with a smile.

Vanessa comes home from work already nauseous at finding him the same image stuck on repeat, but today is different: today Usnavi’s literally running into the hallway and almost knocking her over with the force of his hug.

“Missed you,” he says in a tearful voice. Half of her wants to cry, but it’s the first time he actually seems to have felt any strong emotion other than scared since shit went down. It’s so oddly reassuring that later that evening Vanessa feels like she can push her luck and tells him, in slightly nicer words, that he needs to take a fucking shower. He touches his own hair and makes a disgusted, surprised face like he’s only just noticed.

“How bleak is my life right now for that to be the highlight of my week?” Ruben asks her as they hear the water start running in the other room. He rubs both hands over his face tiredly. He’s been doing almost as much as Vanessa has to try and look after Usnavi, and he’s about as stubborn as she is too. It’s kind of suspect he seems so…functional. Vanessa doesn’t know whether she’ll ever believe either of them aren’t hiding another secret breakdown again.

“I meant it when I said you can go home if you need to,” she tells him. “I can handle things here. You don’t have to pretend to be okay with everything just to make us feel better.”

“I meant it when I said I’m fine here,” he answers. “I—”

He cuts himself off, biting hard on his lip. Vanessa brings her legs up onto the sofa and pokes his thigh with her toes. “What’s that you’re saying?”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you.”

“That probably means you should.”

Ruben brings his knees up closer to his chest. “Fine, but you can’t— look, you know I don’t ever want anything bad to happen to either of you. So don’t take this the wrong way. It sucks that this whole thing is even a thing.”

“But?” she prompts, when he doesn’t look like he’s gonna continue.

“But…being here, doing all this, it’s actually kind of making it easier to not get fucked up about Jason finding me again.” He’s running a fingernail repetitively up and down the grooves of stitching along his cuffs, clearly unhappy with himself. “I don’t know how to make this not sound fucking terrible…I’m not the one hurting the most this time. I know that’s how it’s meant to be but I don’t like always being the most messed up and at the minute, I’m not. He needs me not to be. It helps that I can do something.”

Like falling apart in the bodega and only putting himself back together when he realised Usnavi was hurt, like how the first thing he did back in the apartment after was fix up Vanessa’s bleeding lip. It’s what she’s been trying to do this whole time, too, except it’s not helping _her_ at all, which seems unfair.

“Whatever makes you feel better, I guess,” she mutters, and it comes out mean. Ruben flinches.

“I shouldn’t have told you that, should I?” he says, flexing his hands open and closed. “Fuck, I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want this to be happening to him, I swear, I’d rather _Ian_ come back and do everything he said he would to me than for Usnavi to have to deal with this but this is how things shook out and for once I can be _helpful_ and —” His voice drops to a despondent whisper. “I said, didn’t I? I told you I’m not a very good person.”

And now she’s freaked him out. Awesome.

“Can I tell you something I definitely shouldn’t tell you?” she says.

“Yeah?”

Deep breath. If they’re all trying to be more honest, Vanessa’s gonna do it too.

“I feel like you two have this whole shared thing that I don’t get and I hate it. And I hate that I hate it because I know I shouldn’t wanna share it and that it sucks for you, but I didn’t get hit with any of the stuff hard enough that I understand what it feels like, or enough that I can just like, justify not taking charge, so I’m stuck tryna be useful with no idea how, and it's driving me crazy.”

“Oh, are you _jealous_?” says Ruben, suddenly bitter. “Don’t _ever_ wish you understood, Vanessa, it’s bad enough I’ve done this to Usnavi.”

“So it’s all _your_ fault, is it?” she retorts. Like she wants to sit and talk him through a guilt spiral right now when she has enough of that of her own to deal with, guilt about not doing enough and about wanting to do less and about how fucking annoyed she is at them both. She’s annoyed at them for being traumatised, for fuck’s sake. _I’m not a very good person either_ , she thinks.

“I’m the one who texted Jason,” Ruben points out.

“You didn’t tell him to come here or do any of that, though. You didn’t make Usnavi’s parents die, Ruben, or Abuela, and you didn’t close the store down. Get your head out of your ass and realise that sometimes things just suck and maybe it doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault and especially it doesn’t always have to be yours.”

Ruben crosses his arms and slouches down in a move that looks exactly like something Sonny used to pull about four years ago. “Don’t want either of you to end up like _this_ ,” he sulks.

“You always say it like that,” she complains. “Don’t talk about yourself like you’re a—a worst case scenario instead of a person.”

“But I _am_ , aren’t I? That’s just how things go. It’s fucked up that there’s part of me relieved about this. I’m _supposed_ to be the sad one. Usnavi’s the happy one.”

It _is_ fucked up that he’s relieved, the kind of thing she’d despise anyone but Ruben for saying. It’s also pretty fucked up that even now he still thinks he’s supposed to be some kind of misery sponge to soak up all the worst things life can throw at them. Can she blame him for wanting any kind of silver lining, no matter how crappy?

“Which one am I, then?” Vanessa asks, as a peace offering. They’re not exactly arguing because they’re all on the same side but it feels close to it.

“The badass one,” he says, with a small smile, and it’s a joke and it’s a compliment and it makes Vanessa feel like shit.

“I don’t wanna be the badass one,” she says. “What the fuck good is that gonna do? It’s not like I’m the one who stopped Jason from getting to you, I barely stopped him from kil— from hurting Usnavi, and I don’t understand any of what either of you are feeling so I just have to fuckin’…come here and tiptoe around so I don’t spook him and he’s not even there, really. He’s not like you where at least I know where your head goes. We can’t leave him on his own any longer than we do but then if I’m actually in the room it’s like he can’t even see me, and he’s not doing anything or being Usnavi and I don’t wanna _do_ this again!”

Something clicks in place.

“Again?” Ruben asks, quietly.

Vanessa doesn’t wanna talk about it. She’s up to her eyeballs in talking about shit right now, and there’s nothing about it she hasn’t said a million times before, she’s not gonna get anything new picking over it again now.

“Mom,” is the only explanation she’s gonna give, all the anger and impatience suddenly making a hell of a lot more sense. It’s not _Ruben_ she’s been reminded of every time she comes home to Usnavi off in whatever world he’s in right now, but Ruben’s never seemed hopeless to her which makes him a less frightening choice. She’s never had to think about whether she’d have to cut ties with him for her own sanity. She hopes to never have to think that about Usnavi, either.

Ruben nods slowly. “I think maybe you’re the one who needs a break,” he says.

“I told him I’d stay, he asked us to stay,” she says, even though it’s exactly what she’s been thinking too. “I’m not gonna jump ship just as he starts actually figuring out what he needs.”

“This isn’t sustainable,” Ruben tells her gently. “It’s not jumping ship for you to look after yourself.”

“It’s fine,” she says, and when it seems like he’s going to argue she says “man, he’s been in that bathroom a while” so that Ruben looks alarmed and runs to check on Usnavi instead.

It has to be fine. Because she’s supposed to be the badass one, because it’s not like she’s not thinking about them the whole time when she’s out on her own anyway, because Usnavi needs her. There’s a world of difference between still readjusting less than two weeks after someone tried to kill you compared to the years Vanessa’s mom spent doing this. Even if it all looks pretty similar on the surface. Even if it feels the same from where Vanessa’s standing.

***

At least Vanessa knows now, which doesn’t get rid of the feeling but does mean she has at least a vague idea how to counteract it: reconnect Usnavi to the present, because neither of them need to be stuck in a memory any longer than they already have.

She takes him on a walk in the park and it seems to switch a light on to see him in some kind of reality, the outside daylight illuminating a forward path if only faintly. As close as Vanessa’s been looking it feels like there’s so much she didn’t see till they talk it over. Like how he thinks he’s getting better while she’s been mostly worried about the ways he’s still stuck.

Or that, for all she thinks he’s been off-world, he’s at least been paying close enough attention that he calls her out on comparing him to Ruben. It was her only option, and he seems kind of pissed about it in a way she doesn’t really understand, but she doesn’t wanna fight with him. So she nods and says _more fun, more noise_ and then they let the cold air blow the dust out of their lungs while they walk around the park.

Usnavi goes quiet for a while and Vanessa stops still, tugging questioningly at his hand, not wanting him to disappear again so soon. He rubs a thumb over her knuckles.

“Ruben said,” he starts, haltingly. “When we were arguing, he said he used to want to, y’know, hurt himself. He, he doesn’t still feel like that, right?”

“Shit, I’d forgotten that.” How could she _forget_? But she doesn’t know the answer. They know him so well but when it comes to this kind of thing who can ever tell what’s going on in Ruben’s head?“I don’t know. He’s better about telling us stuff now, he would’ve said something, I think?”

“Yeah,” says Usnavi, sounding uncertain. “Probably.”

And even though she’s trying not to any more the part of her that’s cataloguing parallels lights up warning red.

“Usnavi,” she starts, and doesn’t know where to take the rest of that sentence. It takes about ten seconds of her making awkward _you know_ faces at him before Usnavi’s eyes go big with understanding.

“Nononono,” he says quickly, waving his hands. “No, Jesus, not me, it was just on my mind.” He screws his face up unhappily. “I…I don’t want that to happen to me, Vanessa.”

“You think it’s a possibility?” she asks, dreading the answer.

“No,” he says, but then his gaze drops to the floor. “Only... I didn’t think _any_ of this was a possibility. Feeling this way about my family again - I mean, I always miss them, but this is… or like, going to meet Jason. What if it’s the same as everything that’s been going on where I don’t even know I’m in trouble till I’m too far up shit’s creek to turn back?”

“That won’t happen.”

“What makes you so sure?”

Vanessa's not sure at all. Not of what might happen to Usnavi or what any of them should be doing or how a person ends up feeling that way in the first place, but she definitely thinks she can follow the line of thought that’s got Usnavi worried about it.

The first time she met Ruben she’d called him _Usnavi 2.0_ , just as a joke. It seems like a cruel thing to say now, even though none of them took it that way at the time. To be seen as the second version, the sequel, not the real thing, it must be the worst. Every path someone else’s footsteps, every action ranked against _would the other person have done it this way._

Maybe that’s why Ian was so angry.

Not that she’s feeling sorry for _him_. Only that she’d be angry too, even if she’d never use it in the ways that him and Jason do. She already is all the time right now anyway, like being a kid again when she was mad at the world for long enough that people began to expect it of her by default. Everyone knew that Vanessa was a firecracker or had a temper or, _ugh_ , “she’s fiery” - and she didn’t know how to stop it so she just leaned in instead. _You think I’ve got a temper? Fine. I’ll_ ** _show_** _you temper._ Only it’s never who she wanted to be, just that it seemed inescapable.

She thought she was _over_ this. Everyone’s getting their asses kicked by the past right now. Still. Vanessa’s good at getting out when she needs to.

So maybe she should’ve learned a better lesson about the weight of living down to expectations. It makes sense all of a sudden that Usnavi doesn’t want to be treated like Ruben, even though it seemed like the better option from Vanessa’s perspective, even though he loves Ruben so much. It hadn’t really occurred to her the burden the comparison brings with it: the thing she forgot about Ruben knowing how to pull himself out of hell is that it means he had to go through it in the first place. It’s a pretty fuckin’ ominous signpost for anyone to see and the last thing any of them want is to turn Usnavi into a self-fulfilling prophecy by steering him too far that direction.

Only all of that is too confusing to wrestle into words off the cuff, so she just says ‘“because I’d kick your ass if you ever thought about leaving us like that.” Usnavi laughs, and she thinks he might’ve understood part of what she really meant anyway.

“Okay,” he says, shrugging like he’s shaking the bad feeling off his shoulders and standing straighter again. “Okay! Well. I don’t plan on goin’ anywhere, so we’re good. Man, you weren’t kidding when you said mood swings, were you?”

“Nope,” she says. “You gonna be alright?”

“Ruben says this is all pretty normal,” Usnavi says. “Which seems kinda insane to me, but I’ll trust his judgement, and at least some of this I’ve dealt with before so I guess we just keep powering through, right?”

“Guess so.” She pauses. “Should I talk to Ruben, do you think? About…the thing you said.”

“Not if you can’t even say it out loud to me,” Usnavi says dryly. She nudges him. “No, but for real, I think it’s my turn. Not exactly been pulling my weight with the supportive boyfriend thing, right?”

“You’ve had a lot to think about. We understand.”  
  
“I know you do,” he says. “But if I’m gonna start being me again I can’t keep on this way, I don’t _like_ not doing anything. And don’t think I ain’t noticed that you’re already doing way too much, by the way. I can handle this one. Take a break. Unless you actually wanna be there too.”

“ _Fuck_ , no,” she says. “I mean, let me know what the deal is but if you’re giving me a pass on yet another emotional conversation I’ll bite your hand off for it.”

“It’s been pretty heavy going lately,” he agrees. “Hey, maybe this just means we’re getting it all out of the way at once and none of us will feel bad for the entire next year.”

The way he says it is convincing enough that she could nearly believe him.

***

That’s a good step one. Next up: why the _fuck_ has Usnavi been ignoring everyone? She’s had some concerned messages from Benny and the Rosarios, just saying they hope he’s recovering okay and to let them know if any of them need anything.

Sonny is a little more persistent.

**Sonny:  
** \- look about the only reason im not freakin out right now is because i can see usnavis read receipts so i know he aint dead  
\- but he hasnt answered anythin from me in four days  
\- if he needs space or whatever thats fine i get it but actually i lied im totally freakin out and i dont get it  
\- u wanna fill me in because tbh im just gonna keep annoyin u til u do

**Vanessa:  
** \- i dont wanna worry you

 **Sonny:  
** \- well u probly shouldnt have said *that* then, genius  
\- come on, v. hes my cousin, i wanna help him

 **Vanessa:  
** \- yeah. ok. you’re probably right  
\- i can come by yours once rubens on his way back from work

Sonny blindsides Vanessa when she gets to his place: instead of the expected barrage of questions about Usnavi, Sonny looks her over, pulls his baseball cap firmer on his head the way he does when he’s about to tackle something important, and says “Vanessa, are _you_ okay?”, full of concern.

It’s real fuckin’ lucky that Sonny’s mom is on an evening shift, because he reminds Vanessa so much of Usnavi just for that one second and for some reason it makes her burst into tears immediately, and that's embarrassing enough just in front of Sonny.

This is definitely not how she intended the conversation to go.

There’s palpable nervousness in Sonny’s whole demeanour when he hugs her - has she ever cried properly in front of him before? - and he sounds scared when he says “is it…is it that bad?”

“Yes,” she sobs instinctively, then, more truthfully,"no. He’s doing better, he is, but it’s been so long since he was okay, he got _hurt_ and— and he’s lost so many people and he’s still hurting about them too and I can’t, I don’t—“ she dissolves into incoherence.

Sonny’s still hugging her, and she feels like a dick, because he’s just a kid, and he cares so much about Usnavi and it must be shitty to feel so excluded, just as much as it feels shitty to be trapped right in the centre. Now all this is probably just making it seem to him like everything’s still at rock bottom when it’s not.

“I’m sorry,” she says, trying to pull herself together. “I’m sorry, I meant to come here to like, reassure you or whatever, I swear things aren’t nearly as bad as they have been. It’s just…”

It’s just Usnavi could have died, it’s just that Vanessa’s been holding on to her tears and staying tough until things feel less dire and apparently now’s the time.

“It’s just…he told me he’s been lonely, for like…at least a fucking month, probably more, he’s felt _lonely_ ,” she says, which sounds dumb compared to literally everything else that’s been going on, but it felt like a gunshot when he told her because she didn’t _know_ and somehow that feels crucial to everything that happened afterwards.

“Well, is it any surprise he’s lonely if he’s not talking to anyone?” Sonny says, pragmatically. _“_ Dios mio _._  For such a feelingsy guy he’s real bad at feeling things. And I’ve had half the neighborhood asking why they ain’t heard from him because they think I know where his head’s at but I don’t even know where _he’s_ been at like, physically speaking.”

“The couch, mostly,” says Vanessa. “To be honest, Sonny, I’m not sure where he’s at either. He really is improving but still, I haven’t seen him this bad since…since it actually happened, with his parents. And I didn’t know him well enough back then to see it this close up.”

“I wish Abuela were here,” Sonny says, melancholy. ”She was always the best at keeping him level.”

Vanessa hums agreement. “He wasn’t like this after we lost her. I don’t get it. He loves her just as much as he loves them.”

“He’s never spoke to me about them properly,” says Sonny. “What I think is…Abuela was _my_ abuela too, she was everyone’s abuela. It was easier to share it. But nobody else lost their parents when Tía Rosa and Tío Mateo died, or had to take over the business for them. And I guess this time it’s nobody else has lost the store the same way. I think if it were me I’d be feeling lonely too, even with a bunch of people around. I mean, I loved that place, but it was his whole life. Plus, y’know, the strangling thing probably didn’t help.”

For some reason she never stops being surprised when Sonny has these insights, even though she should be used to it by now. Vanessa’s pretty sure she wasn’t this in tune with anything when she was seventeen.

“You’re a smart kid,” she tells him, like she always does.

“I ain’t a kid,” Sonny answers, like he always does. It’s becoming increasingly more true, which is unsettling, except then he pulls his knees up to his chest and it makes him look so much younger again.

“He’s gonna be okay, right?” Sonny asks, in a very small voice. “He did it before. I remember it, kind of. Things were difficult then, too.”

“The only thing he’s ever really said about until recently is that he doesn’t know how he woulda managed without Abuela,” Vanessa says, biting at a hangnail.“So that’s really not helpful right now. I wish I knew how she did it.”

“He underestimates himself, you know he does,” Sonny says, sadly. “I’m pretty sure all Abuela needed to do was love him. The rest was all Usnavi.”

“I can do _that_ ,” Vanessa says. “But there’s still all the practical stuff too, I don’t know how the fuck he’s gonna afford a new place, and he ain’t in the mental space to go get a job and—well. I don’t wanna dump it all on you but I’ll be honest, I’m halfway to a breakdown just by standing too close to it.”

“Actually,” says Sonny, “about the money thing…”

***

Sonny is _brilliant_. Of course it makes sense, of course everyone's already come together on Usnavi’s behalf. It's more returning a favor than charity, he’s done so much over the years. But it’s the kinda thing would never in a million years have occurred to Vanessa or Ruben. Trying to picture the two of them going door to door asking for donations has definitely got more of a _—or else we’ll break your kneecaps_ vibe to it than a _we need to rally the community_ one. It’s exactly the kind of thing Sonny would think of. It’s exactly the kind of thing _Usnavi_ would think of. Something uniquely De la Vega.

Vanessa’s walking on air all the way home.

Ruben and Usnavi are asleep in the living room all tangled up in each other when she gets back, laptop gone to screensaver and a couple sheets of paper dropped carelessly on the floor beside them like it fell there. For once their presence on the couch makes her feel better: Ruben isn’t sleeping alone, because Usnavi is sprawled out on top of him. And Usnavi isn’t quite so lost in some labyrinthine sadness, it looks like, because as she picks up the paper to stack it neatly on the wobbly, broken coffee table, she sees it’s both of their handwriting in contrast to each other, like a conversation. They’ve been writing down resources: for free online self-help courses and counselling and techniques, for trauma, for grief, for depression.

If Vanessa hadn’t already cried herself out earlier she probably would now, though she doesn’t think she feels bad about it, as such.

Her mom used to insist she was fine and didn’t need AA and didn’t have a problem. When Vanessa finally realized that conversations about it would only end up in yelling, she’d leave conspicuous pamphlets around, which would get buried unread under the latest pile of unopened bills. Then she’d come home from work and clean up bottles and open windows, and her mom would grab her wrist, slurring quiet repeated _I’m sorry_ s. Vanessa would always wonder why she bothered when nothing ever came of the apologies.

She gently kisses both of their heads and Ruben doesn’t stir, but Usnavi pulls at her sleeve, and when she leans in again to hear his sleepy rough mumbling he’s not apologising: he’s saying _thank you, te amo, I love you._

***

Even though she knows that she has unintentionally gathered herself something of a surrogate family, Vanessa’s not really a fan of making any direct parallels. Sonny is family, no question about it, but to her his position is always gonna be Usnavi’s cousin, not Vanessa’s. Nina calls Usnavi her little brother - despite him being a year older than them - but to Vanessa, she’s not a sister, even though they’re equally as close: she’s just Nina. They don’t have to act like they're blood related for it to be important. Abuela Claudia was the one exception, but like Sonny said, she was _everyone_ ’s Abuela, that’s different.

So even though it’s unthinkable to her that she’ll ever turn to her own mother for comfort, no matter how much easier things have become for them, Vanessa doesn’t have anyone she thinks of as a replacement mom. Which does not mean she doesn’t have someone to turn to when she needs to barge in somewhere seeking snacks and wisdom and unquestioning affection. Sonny's round at Usnavi's, so Vanessa's got the evening to do what she wants with, and what she wants is to be here.

“You look terrible,” Dani tuts, both hands on Vanessa’s cheeks so she can turn Vanessa’s head side to side critically.

Vanessa wriggles out of her grasp and sails past into Dani’s kitchen gracefully, middle finger raised. “Someone’s jealous of my youth and vitality,” she sings. “Make me coffee.”

“And someone’s been running herself ragged trying to look after those trouble magnets she calls boyfriends,” says Dani. “I will be charitable and assume this is why you are so rude, though I don’t know what your excuse is the rest of the time. Tell me.”

Vanessa jumps up onto the counter. “It’s been difficult,” she admits. “Not so much with Ruben, actually, it’s not that different to his usual stuff and he knows how to handle it. But Usnavi’s kind of lost in the weeds at the minute and it’s…wrong. That one's harder.”

“ _Ay_ , poor little thing,” Dani sighs. “Both of them. So much to deal with for such gentle souls. Usnavi is tough, though, and it'll do neither of you any good for you to try and take over his healing process.”

“Jeez, way to make it sound like helping is a _bad_ thing,” Vanessa says, nettled. “You always used to say I should try and be softer.”

“Yes, and don’t try to pretend you didn’t listen, you think I haven’t seen you change since then?” Dani says. “But sometimes people need to do things by themselves, else it just won’t stick. You know this already.”

“He’s already doing everything he can,” Vanessa counters, maybe a bit too defensive. “Es diferente, he’s not like her.”

“Me doy cuenta,” Dani says. “You forget I have known him since he was un bebé. I’m saying—hm. No. What I am saying is, let’s not talk about Usnavi for the moment. You're leaving soon! Let’s talk about that instead.”

“I’d…actually kinda forgotten that was happening,” Vanessa admits, and Dani makes a pursed-lip face. “Well, I’ve been _busy_.”

“Don’t let yourself forget again!” Dani says. “You deserve to be excited. Look forward to the sunshine, _chica_ , it’s a good thing to think about when the winter is so long.”

“California has winter too,” Vanessa points out. “I’m not exactly gonna be catching rays in January.”

“I was speaking metafóricamente.”

“Deep,” Vanessa snorts, and Dani lightly cuffs her round the back of the head. “Hey!”

Dani prods Vanessa to the side so that she can get to the jar of instant coffee and gives Vanessa a pointed look like she’s daring her to say something about it. “So! What do you think it will be like living with Nina? Is she going to clear a space for you in all her books or will you be sleeping on the doorstep?”

“Ha. I’m just hoping they don’t all fall on me in the middle of the night,” Vanessa says.

“A terrible way to go.”

“You know she’d be saddest about my splattered corpse ruining the pages. _We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of my mint condition Austen collection. Oh, and I guess Vanessa’s dead too.”_

They drink crappy instant coffee and talk about Nina and California and plane rides and Dani’s trips out of state, and a thousand easy things that Vanessa hadn’t had space for in too long. She doesn’t think about Usnavi or Ruben or Jason or the dead for at least three hours. It’s like opening the windows to let all the stale air out.

***

It has been a very long time since Vanessa got laid, which is fine, because it’s not the most important thing right now. Except it’s also really kind of not fine because Vanessa has often found that sometimes the best way to shut your brain up is just to fuck someone hard enough you can’t think, and she’s really missing that option now.

It makes sense to her, whenever Ruben takes a step back, everything considered. It’s happened before less completely than now, where he’ll keep his distance and just watch, or where he’ll let them touch but only over his clothes, or he’ll bring them off but not the other way around. Endless reminders that he can choose how close he wants to be. It’s just a fact of Ruben as a person that sometimes he doesn’t like sex.

Usnavi _loves_ sex, in a way where he pours all his soul into it every time. He’s definitely got a hair-trigger. So even though she abstractly gets that right now he’s probably needing to re-establish some sense of bodily autonomy himself and hasn’t pushed it, it’s still been sort of difficult for Vanessa to get her head around him not wanting _anything_ for such a long stretch of time.

And then she tries, just to see if he’s there yet, and Usnavi moves her hand away admitting miserably that it’s not that he doesn’t want to, he just literally, physically _can’t_.

Ah.

That…must really fucking suck? That even the things that make him feel good are denied to him right now? The situation is frustrating enough for Vanessa and it’s not like she can’t take care of it herself, at least, though the moments she’s been sneaking in the shower or in the few hours she spends at her own place have definitely been less than satisfying. But a disconnect between body and brain like not being able to get it up is unfathomable to her,and not just because she doesn’t have any experience of dick-ownership in general. Vanessa’s body is her own, that’s something she’s always sure of no matter what. There’s things like illness or cramps or aches that are always a minor betrayal, sure, but imagine being so stressed that your body won’t even let you enjoy stress relief. What a stupid, cruel cycle to get trapped in.

(She wonders if it felt as much a violation for Jason to be in Usnavi’s store as it was for Jason to actually lay hands on him.)

It’s jarring for a second that Ruben slips his hands inside Usnavi’s shirt, his tongue into Usnavi’s mouth - it’s not what they’d do if it were him - but Usnavi shudders in a deep, satisfied way and Vanessa thinks about feeling unanchored in thought, needing something physical to keep you steady.

She touches him too, more deliberate than they have in a very long time, and it’s as if that canyon she couldn’t raise her voice enough to call across is closing, like they’ve grabbed Usnavi’s hands and started pulling him back, though he’s already been making his own way anyway.

It feels better than she would’ve thought to her too, even without the promise of satisfaction at the end, which doesn't stop it from being a little bit torturous. Usnavi is beautiful, and he’s naked, and he’s sighing and pliant under their hands and Jesus, she wants him.

But more than that Vanessa wants him to be happy. Right now, he looks happy.

“It’s gonna be okay, Usnavi,” she tells him, finally believing it. What she doesn’t say with words she caresses into him and hopes he can hear it clearly - you’re still here, you’re real, we’re bringing you home.

***

Maybe it’s because she knows its only temporary till she heads out west, but the sight of boxes of Usnavi’s stuff all over her apartment doesn’t fill her with the kind of claustrophobia she would’ve expected from years of insisting she prefers to live alone.

Maybe she’s just distracted by the way Ruben’s hands are creeping under Usnavi’s shirt again while Usnavi, oblivious, tries to wrap a string of tinsel around Ruben’s head like a crown. Or, a few minutes later, distracted by Usnavi overcome with shocked delight while Sonny grins proudly next to him.

Or by whatever the hell they did to her apartment. It is _not_ a look. She raises the subject once all the emotions of the fundraiser thing die down.

“We’re gonna do a tree, too,” says Ruben. “You wanna get one tomorrow?”

“I take it we’ve decided Christmas is happening here then? Thanks for asking,” she says sarcastically, though she doesn’t really care, and her place is the best choice for it anyway.

“Well, we _have_ already decorated,” says Usnavi _._ “Look how beautiful it is!”

“Do you like it? We tried our best,” says Ruben. He’s still got tinsel wrapped around his head like a silver halo, and he blinks sweetly up at her, his eyes very big and very brown. Vanessa could swear he always calculates the exact angle of lighting to get them to go all shiny like that.

She’s not buying it.

“I know this was your idea, Marcado,” she says. Usnavi immediately turns an accusing stare on Ruben like he had nothing to do with this mess. “You ain’t off the hook either, Usnavi, these are your decorations.”

“Why’s there a roadkill demon in your bathroom?” Sonny asks, coming back in. “It watched me pee. It was a bad time.”

“It’s a deer,” says Usnavi. “Don’t be rude, it’s family.”

“It’s a piece of shit,” says Sonny. “I told you that when you bought it. Why you gonna do V’s place like this when she’s taken you in out of the goodness of her heart?”

“I hope you all know Sonny’s my favorite,” Vanessa tells them.

“Well then, Ruben’s _my_ favorite,” Usnavi says, offended.

“The deer is my favorite,” says Ruben. “Is it single, or…?”

And the claustrophobia still doesn’t set in, not all through the evening, not after Sonny leaves and it’s just the three of them again, and not in bed even though Jesus, when was the last time she slept alone? She shouldn’t get used to this, especially not right before she leaves for four months, but apparently she’s adapted so much that when she half-wakes up because she’s thirsty she can tell within nanoseconds that the bed’s emptier than it should be. 

For once, it’s not Ruben who’s missing. Usnavi is in her living room, hunched over his laptop, and he looks up at her with his face all covered in tears. Vanessa’s stomach sinks - things were fine earlier, Usnavi was smiling and they had fun and Ruben’s sleeping soundly. Can’t they have _one_ night?

Usnavi says, “there’s just so many?” 

_Oh_. He’s looking at the crowdfunding page, reading through all the comments. Vanessa looked herself before Sonny revealed the big secret to Usnavi and there really are a lot, hundreds. Half of them she doesn't even know who they are, despite probably being people she's lived around all her life, but apparently they all know Usnavi and they all love Usnavi.

If it were anyone apart from him she’d get a secret sting of jealousy. He’s earned it.

“I didn’t know it was so important to anyone else,” he says, wonderingly. “They all say they’re gonna remember.”

“You’re pretty unforgettable,” she confirms. He sniffs, shakes his head in disbelief, wipes his eyes.

Even though these are the kind of Usnavi tears that just spill out of him when he’s too full of everything, not the grieving kind, Vanessa’s seen enough crying recently that she wants him to stop anyway, so she gently closes the computer and says, “you should take me to the club tomorrow.”

***

“We can’t tempt you?” Usnavi asks, checking just once like he always does because he doesn’t want Ruben to think he won't be welcome if he ever miraculously changes his mind.

“Nope, not even in those jeans,” says Ruben. “Although, kudos.”

Usnavi preens.

“You gotta shake it in front of the people some time, Ruben,” Vanessa tells him. “You’re depriving them. It’s selfish.”

Ruben’s not actually much of a dancer and both of them know it, and they also both know he’s never gonna go out dancing with them. She rests her hands on his hips, feels the soft fabric of his sweatpants, the soft curves of his body a closer resemblance to her own than to Usnavi, who’s all bones and slender muscle and sharp angles. Ruben hums, and sways in a vaguely rhythmic way.

“The people haven’t earned it yet,” he says. “I’m pretty happy to have a quiet night.”

“Don’t elope with the deer head while we’re gone,” Usnavi says warningly. “It’ll only break your heart.”

“What I have with the deer head is real and true and pure,” Ruben says. “Have fun tonight. I’ll wait up for you.”

Even though Usnavi seems pretty hype to be going out, Vanessa feels weirdly nervous on the way there. It doesn’t feel like he should want to do this, and it feels like she might have forgotten how to.

As they step through the door, though, Usnavi shuts his eyes and nods a couple times the way he does, like he’s assimilating the beat to his system, every time the same as the first time they came here together. Vanessa would love to spend a night out with both of the guys, but it feels somehow right that it’s just her and Usnavi. There’s things that they have in all their different configurations that they don’t have to share all three of them. Vanessa and Usnavi have this: the pulse of music, silent communication in glances and pointing and expressions, the lights playing prettily across Usnavi’s skin in shades of red-blue-purple-green alternating that hide the last of the bruises still to heal.

Here’s something better than choreography: they don’t ever seem to lose each other in the crowd any more. It’s loud in here, a thousand miles away from the silence when Usnavi’s voice was still fucked and Ruben couldn’t talk. They’re moving in sync with each other, a thousand miles away from Usnavi curled up small and still and staring on the couch. There’s people all around but this club is theirs alone from the second they walk in.

Not everything is cured, Vanessa knows that. This is just a reprieve, and even so, filled with persistent little reminders. Usnavi cuts back in easily and says “well, if you’re offering” to some loser who started trying to insist Vanessa let him buy her a drink while Usnavi was in the bathroom, the same way Usnavi always intercedes, and the guy slumps off grumpily no trouble. That’s pretty standard, but Usnavi taking his hat off to run his hand through his hair nervously, staring after the dude with his jaw clenched tight instead of turning right to Vanessa with an eyeroll and a megawatt smile, _that’s_ new. It’s new that they stand to the very edge of the dancefloor instead of in the thick of it, and that Usnavi’s shoulders tighten that way when people knock too hard into him. 

Vanessa turns them smoothly so Usnavi’s between her and the wall, shielded from the crowds. She doesn’t think he realises. But it’s okay, it doesn’t take away from her night to keep an eye out for him. They always do that for each other anyway, and here it’s just shoving and idiots she’s keeping him safe from, way simpler than ghosts and memories and grief.

They dance, and Vanessa can feel all the tightly wound nerves inside her unravel with every spin. Usnavi and Vanessa are dancing, Ruben is safe while he waits for them at home. This is better, this is right.

It’s always something powerful, when they’re out together like this: Usnavi’s a good five inches shorter right now because Vanessa’s gone all out on the heels tonight. She likes it when he’s smaller than her, and she likes that he’s always been into that. The perfect height difference for her to drop kisses down on the top of his head and she can tilt his chin up too, watch him tiptoe to reach her mouth, light at first then deeper when she leans down into it, and matching the rhythm of the kiss to the bass and the crowds and the lights.

Usnavi said he wants noise and fun and being touched. Well. Vanessa’s happy to oblige on that point, scratches gently down his back over his shirt until he’s shivering, then she tucks her hands into his back pockets and squeezes, because Usnavi in a pair of jeans that actually almost fit him is a rare treat that she should make the most of. Usnavi loses his balance.

“Hey, careful with the merchandise,” he admonishes her, laughing.

“Oh!” Vanessa exclaims, hit with an unexpected torrent of recognition, all the things that are just Usnavi right there in front of her where he's seemed so absent before: his skinny hips, his big blinding grin with his crooked bottom teeth, a rhythm in the background that could be coming right from Usnavi himself instead of the thudding speakers. It echoes right down to her bones.

She says “I _missed_ you”, without really meaning to. Usnavi frowns but the smile is back seconds later.

“I’m here now,” he replies. “I’m still here.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [a/n: sorry this took eighty years but in my defence it's 19.5k and also in my defence i never claimed to be reliable.
> 
> warnings for the usual PTSD stuff, similar depression-related material as last two chapters, and also a little more in-depth talk about ruben post-jamaica - that includes suicidal thoughts and disordered eating - so tread careful and be safe, though this chapter still has my usual Generally Hopeful Guarantee]

Ruben already knows from walking around with Usnavi and Vanessa that getting waylaid constantly is just part of dating the kind of people who actually socialize with other human people, especially in this neighborhood. When he’s out with them it’s impossible to go more than five steps without someone stopping to have a quick catch-up. It’s a miracle they managed to keep their relationship quiet for as long as they did. People seem to notice everything around here. It’s also a miracle anyone ever gets to where they’re going on time.

They don’t stop Ruben when he's on his own, which he’s fine with. He gets more polite smiles and cheerful passing hellos than he’s ever been used to before, but usually he has headphones on because listening to the city around him makes his head spin, and the Do Not Engage vibe makes it easier to just get on with things by himself. He lives a nice balance of welcomed but not necessarily observed, not like Usnavi who you’d think was omnipresent from the amount of people he seems to know and the amount people seem to know about his life. Perils of being a central figure in the community, though of course Usnavi thrives off it.

Usnavi’s staying off radar after everything that happened, though, and Ruben’s walking without his headphones because he’s still on high alert. He needs to hear what’s going on around him - which as always in New York City is everything at once, and extremely loudly. Currently he’s zeroed in on a particular group of three that have crowded onto the same subway car as him in the last short stretch of his commute home, two women, one very tall guy.

“Did you hear Usnavi from the bodega got the shit kicked out of him?"

Ruben pulls his scarf up over his mouth and slouches down. He’s still straining his ears to hear what they’re saying, but he doesn’t want them spotting him and coming to ask any questions.

“Yeah, what the hell happened? A fight?” asks the guy.

“I heard that someone broke into his store after hours while he was in there,” says the second woman, in a loud fake-whisper like she wants people to think she's low-key but also really wants them to know she's in the loop.

“Well, I heard someone tried to kill him.” That’s the first speaker again. She sounds half genuinely horrified and half as if she’s relishing the chance to one-up everyone on the details. Ruben counts slowly inside his head, taps his fingers on the strap of his backpack in time with it.

“No way.”

“No lie!” she says. “Julieta says she saw him on his last day at the store and his face was totally fucked up, had this big bruise around his neck too. Couldn’t even talk or nothin’. I asked around and apparently his cousin’s been telling everyone a different bullshit story, but word is someone tried to _hang_ him. Nobody knows for sure, but that’s just what I hear.”

Ruben knows for sure. And even if he hadn’t been there it was clear - sickeningly clear down to the last detail - that it was a handprint, not a rope-mark. Light enough that it’s already fading away compared to all the others. Apparently that’s not exciting enough for the rumor mill.

“Dios mío. And in his own store? Poor guy.”

“So what, was it just a random break-in?”

“I dunno, you’d think someone would just use a gun for a robbery, right? Maybe he got in with a bad crowd.”  
  
“Well. Or. He _did_ just lose his job,” the second girl says, meaningfully. “My cousin knew a guy in her building had to sell out his deli and it took ‘em three days to realize he’d closed up for the last time and then shot himself right there at the prep station. I’m just sayin’.”

_Yeah, well, nobody fucking asked you to just say anything._

“What, and he punched himself in the face too, did he? Nah, man. Anyway, you know Usnavi, I don’t think that dude even knows how to be sad, he ain’t gonna -” the guy makes a gruesome little pantomime of a hanging.

Ruben clenches his fist tight around his backpack strap. Ignore the urge to butt in and tell them that they don’t know anything about the situation. Ignore the urge to tell them that actually Usnavi got hurt because he was stupid and brave and protective, and he _does_ know how to be sad, and they shouldn’t talk about this shit like it’s just casual neighborhood gossip. Ruben is not going to get involved.

It’s lucky the store closing came when it did, really, at least Usnavi can just stay in his apartment where he’s not centre of all this attention.

Wouldn’t Ruben just love to do the same? It felt like a spotlight was on him all day at work. He’d had to alert campus security, which meant the staff all got copied in on the _heads up in case of this fucking lunatic_ warning, and he’s not kidding himself that they weren’t glancing in his direction worriedly more than they usually would. It’s mostly just paranoia that made it feel like all of the students and the people on the train were looking at him too, which didn't make it any less unpleasant. But he spent last week after it happened hiding inside, so now it’s time to get back on the bike, because it’ll only get harder the longer he leaves it anyway and it’s pretty damn hard already.

Thankfully, once they all exit at the same stop, the three chatty strangers disappear immediately into the crowd. Ruben stays tense all the way to Usnavi’s place, and outside the store he’s hit with an abject weariness that stops him dead, feeling like he’s found himself back at the bottom of a mountain he thought he’d almost scaled. It’s not really starting all over again, but he’s still so tired from the first climb. The mural next to him as he leans on the grate is bright summer colors against the grey of winter twilight.

It’s strange how he always thinks of this woman who he never once met as Abuela. She’s not even his found-family, but he’s never heard her referred to any other way, and he hears about her a lot, so it’s stuck. Someone else who always stood at the centre and let the whole community flow through her, from what he can tell, and maybe that’s where Usnavi gets it from. He says he learned pretty much everything from her. Still seems to be learning, somehow, prefacing advice with “well, if Abuela were here“, or shouting his gratitude to the sky when he feels like she’s helped him out.

“If you were here, then…what?” Ruben mutters to the portrait. He could use some guidance too. If anyone knows how to handle the fragile, frightened Usnavi they’re dealing with right now it’d probably be her, but Ruben has no reference to even imagine her voice, never mind what she would advise him to do. All he has to go off are a thousand often-repeated anecdotes and an often-repeated quote, right there in spraypaint in the bottom left of the picture. He trails his foot under it like he’s underlining, wobbling slightly on one leg. The words don’t help him feel any better.

“Easy for you to say,” he tells her. Ruben’s tired of being patient. Ruben doesn’t know what to have faith in. 

Abuela Claudia’s portrait just smiles at him. Ruben sighs.

***

It’s been six days and Ruben hasn’t found a shorthand for what happened yet. He has one for everything else, like chapter titles for various traumas: the basement. Jamaica. The warehouse. There’s such a weight behind the words that it throws him when he hears any of them in their normal, casual contexts. “I’m going down to the basement to—“ ( _be tied up and gagged and stabbed with a needle!_ ) “—do laundry” ( _oh, right_ ).

He’d told Vanessa yesterday that it might be a good idea to try and get back to normal, but this sort of thing happens to Ruben often enough that he can recognise it instantly: they’re in the moment after something big, where normal is a thing that has to be reshaped around the change rather than something already established that they can return to. An unknown quantity stretching far out into the future. It feels wrong to have a pivotal moment and no way of referring to it, and he’d rather not have to use Jason’s name more than necessary, and he’s pretty sure all of them would prefer it if it wasn’t That Time Usnavi Got Strangled, but it also feels wrong to follow the trend of location names. The bodega can’t mean what happened to them there last week. The bodega means falling in love and coffee and happiness. The bodega means Usnavi.

Usnavi’s an unknown quantity right now too.

Bedtime truths that Ruben has grown accustomed to: at a default Usnavi’s the one who sleeps in the middle, and he’s almost always little spoon when there’s only two of them. There’s occasions when they switch, but for the most part Vanessa finds the middle suffocating and Ruben likes the reassurance of an easy escape route. Usnavi gets an overtired restlessness that being surrounded seems to soothe, like he needs someone else to hold him still long enough for his body to catch up to the fact that it’s finished work for the day.

Another truth: it’s insanely easy to tell when Usnavi is awake and trying not to be obvious about it, because he tries so hard to stay still that the suppressed urge to fidget emanates off him in waves. It’s somehow more disruptive than the little sighs and nonsense murmuring and twitches he always does when he’s asleep, and it’s keeping Ruben awake too even though he’s been hovering at the edge of exhaustion for about an hour now. Usually a blowjob is a pretty quick solution for this problem, but since nobody is feeling that right now, especially not Ruben, he settles for resting a hand firmly against Usnavi’s back instead.

“Hey,” he whispers, and Usnavi doesn’t answer but he definitely hears because he goes even stiller, somehow. “Hey, it’s okay, you’re gonna be okay.”

And they’re already close - not much space for three in any of their beds - but he presses in closer, because he can feel Usnavi is shaking now, a nearly undetectable tremor. Vanessa shifts on Usnavi’s other side, mutters something that might be comforting or might just be sleeptalking. Usnavi’s breath is shaking too, long shuddery inhales and exhales that are clearly trying and definitely failing to be steady, like the precursor to tears that never quite come. It would be better if he just cried and got it over with, but he doesn’t, so it just carries on until eventually Ruben loses the fight against sleep, and that’s the sound that follows Ruben into his dreams.

***

The sound that chases Ruben out of his dreams is the shaking breath of just-started-crying, except it’s his own this time. He can’t remember what the nightmare was, really. All of them at once, one of those indistinct montages of places, sensations, emotions, a Greatest Hits of worst moments. Half-sentences and freezeframe images, background noises and something painful something painful something painful.

Changing up the usual soundtrack of terror, playing loud over all the snapshots this time is an apocalyptic sense of loss. In Usnavi’s kitchen with a hat clasped in his hands imagining a repeat of Jamaica being played out on the man he loves while they wait for him in silence. In the bodega trying to force himself to move, watching Usnavi going limp in the split-second before Jason throws him aside. Whatever narrative is unfolding is steering all these small realities towards an ending that never happened, and this is the certainty that carries through the whole night: Usnavi’s not getting back up this time. Usnavi’s not coming back home.

It’s nothing new waking up to Vanessa - “ssh, honey, it’s only us here” - and Usnavi - “you’re with us, you’re in my apartment”— whatever they’re saying is irrelevant, what’s important is this means _they_ must be safe. Pushing through the skin-crawling need to not touch that’s Usnavi’s heartbeat fearful-fast under Ruben’s hand, his grip on Ruben’s arm gentle but still strong and certain. Alive, definitely unquestionably alive. Okay.

He checks again a second time, for blood (all clear) and bruises (too many, so many, Usnavi's covered in them), and when he’s memorized what’s okay and what isn’t okay he finally goes off to sleep in the living room. Usnavi’s old creaky sofa always makes his back ache and it’s a lot colder in here without the shared body heat, but even though this will almost definitely happen again tomorrow, Ruben already knows he won’t spend the night at his own place. He wants to be here, where he can creep up to the bedroom door and see for himself that they’re still there when he starts misremembering events, where he can check the front door is locked and the chain is on when he starts doubting, where he knows if he wakes up and Jason is there then none of them will have to face him alone. Ruben doesn’t have to be alone. Not this time. Not again.

***

** Ruben:  
** \- did it go ok with the checkup today?

 **Usnavi:**  
\- results are in, turns out ive actually been dead for 15 years  
\- you done fucked a ghost

 **Ruben:**  
\- eh, i’ve probably fucked weirder things  
\- does that mean you didn’t leave me anything in your will?

 **Usnavi:**  
\- the fuck kinda bequeathal you expecting anyway  
\- ill leave you all my debt if you like

 **Ruben:**  
\- no thanks  
\- everything’s fine, right? no complications, nothing we need to be worried about?

 **Usnavi:**  
\- all good all good

Work was easier today than it has been, because if nothing else at least Vanessa’s at home, and it’s reassuring to know that she and Usnavi are keeping an eye out for each other. So when Ruben gets off the escalator at 181st, he’s not expecting Vanessa to be waiting for him, wrapped up warm and holding a paper bag of groceries.

“I told you not to come meet me,” he says, automatically kissing her cheek then checking the street around him, cursing himself for his lack of subtlety.

“I’ve been walking home from work every day, I think if Jason were gonna do something to me it would’ve happened by now,” Vanessa points out. “I’m pretty sure he’s gone. Can we stop at your place on the way back? You’re not in trouble,” she clarifies with a rueful twitch of a smile.

Vanessa hates talking private stuff in public, even tucked in the corner of a coffee shop or walking through the streets. Ruben knows this. Ruben hates being told to talk somewhere private. Vanessa knows this. They haven’t really figured out a good way around it yet, but she only asks if there’s good reason for it.

“Vanessa!” someone calls, louder than they need to be for how close their voice is, and Ruben flinches as a woman with long, curly hair and the most frighteningly perfect eyebrows Ruben has ever seen approaches. He’s pretty sure they’ve met before. She definitely has a face that might be familiar, possibly. She definitely has a face. To be honest that’s about all Ruben can be certain of for most people.  


“Vanessa, heeey, ¡hace tiempo! Hola, _Rubén_ ,” the woman adds, smiling kindly at him.

“Hey, ¿qué tal?,” says Ruben, hoping it isn’t too obvious that he’s not sure who she is.

“Oh, no puedo quejarme. Ponedme al día, Vanessa, ¿cómo has estado, cómo está Usnavi?”

“Estamos bien,” says Vanessa, shortly. Ruben blinks at the unfriendliness but the woman doesn’t seem to notice it, sticking with them and chattering at Vanessa for the rest of the street. Ruben’s staying silent, which is probably rude, but she doesn’t address him directly again anyway and all Vanessa’s answers are clipped and unrevealing, so maybe this isn’t someone they like very much?

“Aquí estamos _,”_ Vanessa says once they’re outside Ruben’s building. “Tenemos que irnos, bye, hasta luego.” The woman lingers for a moment too long but when it’s obvious nothing else is forthcoming, she waves a goodbye to both of them and starts walking back the way they just came.

“Ugh,” Vanessa says to herself, and then adds “that was Yolanda, you’ve met her at least a thousand times.”

“Probably,” Ruben shrugs, taking the stairs two at a time. “But, I thought you like Yolanda? Why are you _ugh?”_ He mimics her grumpy face for emphasis, not that Vanessa can see it. “Or am I getting her mixed up? You guys know too many people.”

“Yeah, I like her fine,” Vanessa says, slightly out of breath behind him. “Just not when she’s tryna mine me for gossip about Usnavi.”

“She was? How can you tell? She only mentioned him once,” He opens the door to his apartment at the top of the stairs, holding it for Vanessa to go in first.  
  
“Trust me, I can tell,” Vanessa says darkly, shaking her hair out free from her hat but not bothering to kick off her shoes or take her jacket off before she heads towards the living room. Ruben follows. “And I ain’t feeding info to people who just wanna stand around talking all the grisly details like he’s last night’s TV instead of helping, which is why I wanted to come here first before I talk to you. About him. Obviously.”

“Does Usnavi know this is what we’re doing?” says Ruben, leaning back against the wall to stare suspiciously at Vanessa while she makes herself comfortable, though he already knows the answer.

“Told him I was gonna run some errands then come meet you from work on my way back,” says Vanessa. “He’s sleeping, anyway.”

“So you lied to him.”

“Wasn’t lying,” she frowns. “I went to buy milk, and then I met you from the station. This is just a quick detour so I can catch you up on some stuff because I know he ain’t gonna tell you himself. Why are you acting like I’m up to some shady shit?”

Immediately he’s desperate to know what it is that Usnavi might be keeping from him, but this isn’t how they’re supposed to do things so he puts that to one side for now. “Why are _you_ acting like you’re up to some shady shit? Shouldn’t it be his choice if he wants to tell me something about himself?”

“Yeah, if I thought he’d fuckin’ do it instead of just acting like everything’s roses. I get your hang-up here, I really do, but we can’t always be that black and white on things, and—“

“I just think—“

“He had a flashback,” Vanessa says, impatient and desperate. Ruben shuts up immediately. “Not just freaking out, I can tell the difference by now. He put a scarf on and the second he wrapped it round it’s like he just left his body, and I _had_ to tell you, Ruben, I’m trying to help him and that means you have to know because I don’t know anyone else who’d understand how he’s feeling.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, shocked. “Yeah, that’s something. I’m sorry, Vanessa, you’re right, I do wanna know things like that. Shit. He told me everything was good when I asked earlier, why does he keep _doing_ this?”

“I don’t think it’s on purpose,” Vanessa says. “He doesn’t know himself right now. And to be honest I’m still finding it kinda hard to process how serious this all actually is, too. We could have lost him, Ruben, what would we have _done?_ ”

Ruben’s got no answer for that. He pushes away from the wall to wander to the bookshelf instead, takes the half-full spritzer of water to mist over the leaves of his currently neglected plants. Might as well, while he’s here.

“I just don’t understand how anyone could ever look at either of you and want to hurt you,” Vanessa says sadly, and it sends a pang of _something_ through him. And then, like she’s admitting a big secret, “I was scared of Jason. Even before he did anything, when I was waiting for you in the alley… I can’t explain it, but it was almost worse that he wasn’t actually trying to intimidate me? He tried to make smalltalk and it made me feel like how I would if I was hanging out in a room with a dead body in the corner.”

Ruben knows exactly what she means. He’d been probably more surprised than he should have been to realise he felt the same too, and couldn’t work out whether it’s because Jason had changed or because Ruben has. “Yeah. Uncanny valley effect.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a concept from robotics,” he explains. “If you’re trying to make something look like a person - a robot or CGI or whatever - then there’s sometimes a point in their design where they’re too realistic and not quite realistic enough at the same time. They nearly look human but something about you can sense they’re not quite right, and it triggers this instinctive creeped out feeling. Trying to be something he isn’t. Nearly being believable.”

Vanessa nods fervently. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s this guy alright. Like he was actually so close to like, the fuckin’ dictionary definition of normal average dude that it did a complete 180 back to Skeevesville. Maybe only because I knew what he’s hiding, but he just felt _wrong_. How the hell could he stand there and talk like he didn’t even know what he’d done? Especially when he was talking to you. Did he actually _believe_ himself?”

“He wasn’t always that in denial,” Ruben says. Most of his plants are the kinds that can last a while without attention, because he doesn’t need to surround himself with dying, dried out things if he has a stretch of bad days and can’t get to them, but some of the dark green leaves on the philodendron are looking kind of bummed out, so he sets to work plucking them off. “He used to…well, he didn’t really accept they were the same person, and I don’t know that I can think of them that way either, but he knew Ian was part of himself in some way. He used to feel so _bad_ about the shit Ian did. But I guess it’s not the first time he’s blamed someone else for things that were his own fault.” 

“ _What do you mean, you have no idea? You created it!”_

_“I begged you not to take it! I told you over and over because it wasn’t tested yet!”_

He pulls off a wilting leaf with a little too much force. “I’ve never known what he believes, really. Could be that he’s always been like this and the guilt was just another card to play when he needed to give me a push. I mean, he’d sit there and say _if we can’t stop him I’ll end it_ , what was I gonna do, say _sorry, you’re on your own, and remember if you wanna die it’s down the road not across the street_?”

“Maybe you shoulda done.”

“Maybe,” says Ruben. “Maybe I would’ve done, if I’d known it was going to end how it did. If I’d have known he’d come back and do this…I can’t believe he _did_ this.”

The burning spark of anger he’d felt when he told Jason to go fuck himself reignites inside him. He thought he’d wanted to be sad for a while, about what’s been taken away and about who he thought Jason could’ve been. Well, he’s done with that. He’s cried enough over Jason fucking Cole. Ruben’s not sad any more: Ruben is fucking furious. He could and has made a thousand excuses for what happened between him and Jason - maybe it was Ruben’s fault for going back again and again, or for soothing Jason’s guilt back when he still had that, maybe he deserved it for getting in touch with Jason. But there’s no argument anyone could make that would convince him Usnavi deserved this.

“He’s not gonna get a second chance, I can tell you that much,” he says. “I told him I’d kill him before he ever came near you again.”

“Good,” says Vanessa, quiet and vicious.

“I _meant_ it,” he insists, and she looks taken aback at how intense it came out. “You need to understand, Vanessa. I’m not a violent person, but you have to know I’m capable of doing that, I _have_ done it, and if it’s what I need to do to protect you or Usnavi, I will do it again. I should have told you that a long time ago.”

“You…have done it?” she repeats, wary. “You’re gonna need to explain that right the fuck now.”

“I killed Ian,” he says, heart racing. He keeps her in his peripheral but can’t look directly at her. “Wouldn’t be classified that way legally but I made the drug, I figured out how to administer it, I brought it to them when I came back home. That’s why he followed me on the plane, he knew I could do it. Once they tracked me down the only way I could be certain that me and my family were safe forever was if Ian was dead, so I made damn sure that it happened.”

“Oh, well, that’s different,” she says, relaxing, which isn’t what he expected. “Is that supposed to scare me or something? Ian was a disease. You didn’t kill anyone, you got rid of a condition.”

“According to who? According to me? Or to Ian?” Ruben says. “That kind of thinking isn’t a luxury I can let myself have, Vanessa, not in my field, not when I’m working with the kinds of things I do. Just because I’m in the lab doesn’t mean I’m exempt from thinking about what my work might mean outside it, I’m done with being irresponsible like that. You know how many terrible things have been justified because a bunch of scientists don’t look at what they do from any perspective other than their own, because they think their position is objective? You know there’s people out there who think I’m a disease to be cured as well?”

“For fuck’s sake, Ruben, that’s hardly the same thing.”

“I know it’s not, but do you see what I’m trying to say? To me, getting rid of Ian was the better option for the greater majority of people, yes, but that wasn’t an unbiased decision and it would be the worst kind of arrogance to act like it was. There are no unbiased decisions, not even in science. Even if only from Ian’s point of view, I killed a person to save my own ass. I thought about his perspective before I did it, and I made that choice anyway. Maybe it was right, or maybe it wasn’t, but at least I went into it with open eyes. And if you’re gonna keep me around then I have to make sure your eyes are open too, that you’re seeing me for what I really am.”

Vanessa regards him with a solemn, round-eyed stare. “This is…kinda more science philosophy than I know how to, uh, get into,” she says slowly. “Can you give me a minute to think?”

Ruben gives up the pretence of pruning leaves to watch her worriedly while she sits with a frown of concentration, making thoughtful circling patterns with her fingers against the arm of the couch. This is the right thing to do. Even if it means she finally realises that he’s not as good as they think he is, not as good as they are, even if she decides that he’s too much of a danger and can’t be trusted to be so close to them. At least she knows.

“Okay,” Vanessa says finally, decisively. “From where I’m standing, you still can’t say people who use that shit against people like you is anywhere near on a level with you getting rid of one specific and definitely dangerous person, so I ain’t even gonna entertain that comparison.”

She kicks her legs up to cross at the ankles resting on the coffee table and folds her arms simultaneously. “And maybe I just don’t get it, or I don’t know how much I believe Jason and Ian are actually different people, or maybe this is just because I never met Ian. But if you’re expecting me to have a problem with the fact that you only saw one sure way to keep him away from you forever and you took that shot? Ruben, I’m gonna pick your safety over the life of a torturer every time, no question.”

“And if it came to it, with Jason?” he presses. That can’t be her whole answer. He doesn’t feel guilty about Ian, not exactly, but it’s a heavy thing to deal with, and she’s treating it like it hasn’t even changed her opinion of him. “It wouldn’t be as neat and tidy as a legal medical procedure, you know. And the only thing in the world that could stop me if I felt like I had to do it would be if you asked me not to. I’m not asking you to be responsible for my decision or anything, that’s on me, but that’s just the truth.”

“I can’t promise either way,” Vanessa says. “I don’t even know which way I _want_ myself to feel. Should I say killing anyone is wrong no matter what? Or that he’s not worth throwing away your future like that? Maybe. But I keep remembering him holding Usnavi against that fuckin’ wall and the way that makes me feel, I can’t say for certain I could stop you.”

Ruben’s out of arguments. He sits down wearily next to her on the couch. “Guess we’d better just hope it never comes up, then. Or that Usnavi’s there to be our moral compass if it does.”

“Honestly? I’m not a hundred percent sure he’d stop you either,” Vanessa muses. “I’ve never seen him that angry. It was pretty badass, right? I knew he could get kinda scrappy but damn, who’d have thought?”

“You shouldn’t have to think about this kind of thing,” he says. “This isn’t what you signed up for.”

“You shouldn’t ever have had to think about it either, querido,” she says, taking his hand. “We signed up for _you_ , and that means all of you.”

***

Ruben is turning into his mother. Better than turning into his father - though technically speaking he did once run away to a different country and disappear too, except Ruben’s got a solid excuse for it - but he wonders how long that’s been happening without him noticing it.

When he’s not sure how to express something he tends to unconsciously mimic from example, and really, what better example than his mom when it comes to looking after someone? He can always hear her come through in the few times he uses nicknames, when Puerto Rico comes out stronger in his accent, and apparently now when all else fails and he’s just gonna make food at people. 

It’s fast become clear that despite them all being competent cooks, Vanessa when stressed apparently defaults to a diet of bagels and pizza. Usnavi’s sore throat has healed enough that he’s not limited to soup and those gross powdery meal replacement shakes any more, but he seems to be living entirely off coffee and candy now instead. Ruben doesn’t know much about taking care of people but he can at least shove enough fresh food in their direction to make sure they don’t get fucking scurvy, so he’s been on self-imposed dinner duty this week.

This might be what it was like for his mom. Just desperately trying to find a way to be useful. She spent a pretty significant amount of time trying to feed Ruben back to sanity.

To be fair, he’d seriously needed it. Recovery was like learning his entire life over, right down to relearning how to eat. That last month at IMH he’d been so busy, too stressed even for takeout half the time, and she’d already been fretful about him losing weight them. He hadn’t been busy at all in Jamaica, but he’d had so little money to live on and been in so much pain that he couldn’t even really recognise what his body was asking from him other than _can you just make it stop._ It all added up that by the time he got back home he’d forgotten how to even want food, how to have more than a few bites of every meal. 

It took time to get to even a basic level of functional, weeks of doctor-prescribed meal plans and crying at the dinner table and constant weigh-ins, but it balanced out, eventually. Ruben’s pretty comfortable at what Usnavi calls _curvy_ and Vanessa calls _soft_ , and he likes those words for it, likes that they seem so into him this way because this is the way he’d prefer to be. He doesn’t ever want to be hungry again. The memory of it is so tied up in the painful, confusing haze of pre-recovery. Now, genuine hunger reminds him of standing fully-clothed and weeping under a lukewarm hotel shower, standing in a payphone booth aching to call his mom, a thousand other emptinesses he never wants to relive. It works in reverse too: anxiety feels like that hunger so deep that it flips on itself and makes his stomach hurt too much to enjoy food, but it’s rare he’ll skip a meal unless its really bad.

He tips the chopped onions into the pan, lets the sizzling and hissing run through him like white noise while he starts on deseeding and slicing a pepper.

In Philadelphia, a few months down the line when he was on his way back to himself, he picked cooking back up in small pieces like everything else in his life: start off standing in the doorway of the kitchen watching his mom chop vegetables, slow and careful and far, far away from him. Mercedes or Paola would stand beside him, and chatter about their day to keep his thoughts from flying too far back across the sea, and if he let them they would hold his hand. The knife would gleam under the lights and he’d remind himself that it’s just a tool, that it’s only what people _do_ with tools that makes them dangerous. 

It took _so_ much fucking time for the day when Mercedes came into the kitchen after school and gave an absent-minded “hey, jerk” while she rummaged in the fridge. He’d replied “hey, kid” through a mouthful of sandwich and it’s only then she’d looked properly, at the chopping board with breadcrumbs and the spidery green top parts of tomatoes and the sharp knife still there lying on the side.

“You made that yourself?” she asked, and when he confirmed Mercedes had starting giggling in astonished delight so hard she ended up crying. He’d never really considered the idea that one day something as basic as making a pretty uninspired ham-cheese-tomato sandwich would feel like an achievement, but fuck it. Ruben was proud of himself then, is proud of himself now too, standing here cutting up a pepper eight days after seeing Jason again and his hands are hardly even unsteady.

He’s got his own set of kitchen knives, ones with colored matte blades: no silver, no light catching off the metal. That makes it easier. He brought them round to Usnavi’s on Monday evening, has been cooking for them every night since.

He finishes all of his own dinner. Vanessa picks all of the green peppers out of hers, and hurries through the rest of it so she can duck out onto the fire escape to call Nina. Usnavi pushes his own plate away still half full and Ruben’s heart skips a beat with concern.This might be what it was like for his mom too, wishing she could help him, insisting he eat while he cried or ignored her or yelled at her.

He also knows how that felt from his side - out of control, like even this was a decision that’s been taken away from him - and he’s not letting himself make Usnavi feel that way. Especially since it’s not like Usnavi is at any risk of actually starving, and is more than likely just still full from the entire sleeve of off-brand Oreos and family bag of tortilla chips he apparently had for lunch at four PM because he’s not got any kind of routine without the store to guide him. It’s worrying, but it’s also Usnavi’s life and Usnavi’s body to do with what he wants. Ruben’s not going to force him to go outside or take a shower or eat his dinner, not until it’s something Usnavi’s ready to do, no matter how much constant background anxiety it generates seeing him walk around acting like an anthropomorphic checklist of depression symptoms.

At least Ruben’s done something to help. Half a healthy meal more than Usnavi would’ve had otherwise, and eating at the table means he’s not lying on the fucking couch still, at least. It’s a tangible achievement, and Ruben likes having things like that to cling onto. And now he can cover up the leftovers in the hope Usnavi will remember to have them for lunch tomorrow, and he can wash the dishes, and lots of other small things that maybe aren’t life changing but that feel like forward progress anyway.

Except that once he’s standing in front of the sink waiting for the water to heat with a plate held in one hand, he’s found himself stuck on one particular issue: he needs to roll his sleeves up.

Since last week Ruben’s been getting faint hauntings of a past problem that sometimes recurs, a shudder down his spine when he needs to undress for showers. It’s not as bad as it was then, he’s not so terrified of it that he can’t do it at all, and nobody needs to know that he’s been covering the bathroom mirror over with a spare towel so he doesn’t catch sight of himself naked. But he definitely can’t let anyone else see him, that’s the thing, and Usnavi’s right there about three feet away. Ruben puts the hand not holding a plate on his sleeve, but when he tries to urge himself to just fucking do it, his hand stays still while his head goes off on at least six different panicked rants.

This is less of a devastating thing like it used to be, and more of an annoyance. Like, yes, he gets it, he’s _heard_ all this before.

_He’ll see you, he’ll see_ , Ruben’s brain frets _. He sees me naked on a regular basis_ , Ruben argues back. C _an we maybe just shut the fuck up so I can do the dishes?_

Before it has chance to escalate into a whole internal debate, Usnavi gently pushes him aside, taking the plate out of his hands and saying “let me do that.”

“It’s fine, I can just —“ what, do the dishes with his sleeves rolled down? No thanks. That’s another reminder of a time he doesn’t really want to relive, and even without that it’s a really unpleasant sensation. “Are you sure?”

“My voice is broken, not my hands,” Usnavi says. “Anyway, you made dinner so you aren’t allowed to clean. Pai used to say, _one to cook, one to wash, one to put away, Usnavi, that’s why_ —“ his tone stutters from cheerily anecdotal to something flat and blank. “That’s why I never had a little brother or sister, ’cause we were already the perfect number of people to live with. Don’t think that’s really the reason but it was a nice way to frame it.”

He holds the plate under the hot water, watching it cut uneven trails through the grease for much longer than is necessary, and Ruben takes up Usnavi’s now-empty seat, trying to work out what direction Usnavi is thinking in. The moment feels frozen until Usnavi comes back to himself with a loud gasp.

That’s something that seems to be happening a lot. It scared the shit out of them at first until Usnavi had bit nervously at his thumbnail while explaining that no, he can breathe fine, it’s just he keeps feeling the need to _remind_ himself that he can.

Ruben doesn’t comment on it. It makes sense to him. The way that his hunger is also the memories attached to it, sense memory isn’t something that’s only true for him. Vanessa won’t drink anything she can taste vodka in, hates the smell of cigarettes, opens curtains and blinds and windows whenever possible to let as much light and fresh air into a room as she can.  Memory to Usnavi must be the way December hits icy in the back of your throat like peppermint, or the fever-and-cold-medicine confusion of a heavy flu. Apparently Usnavi with the flu is kind of a killer to watch, according to Vanessa, and that’s information from before they even knew more details about how Usnavi lost his parents. Thank god they’ve escaped anything worse than minor sniffles so far this winter, at least. 

Ruben carries emergency protein bars with him everywhere he goes. Vanessa’s been standing out on the fire escape to call Nina or just to look out over the city more than she usually would, face tipped upwards to appreciate the cold winds. Maybe now the memory of everything that Usnavi lost has turned into this, all tangled up in remembering how it felt to be unable to breathe, those abrupt inhales to counteract not just what Jason did to him but all the rest of it too.

Like it needed to be any harder than it already was. Jason really is an insidious son of a bitch.

***

** Ruben:  
** \- hows the temp accommodation working out for you?

 **Paola:**  
\- i feel like this bedroom is what the inside of your head looks like  
\- there’s nerd-ass posters all over the walls and SIX of the exact same cardigan in the closet  
\- (why are they all here if he liked them enough to buy six though? did he just forget them when he moved away? does he OWN AND HAVE ACCESS TO CLOTHES?)

 **Ruben:**  
\- i met up with him last month and he was definitely wearing clothes then, if it eases your mind

 **Mercedes:**  
\- likely story. i dont think we even have a cousin  
\- are you grifting us  
\- paola have you ever seen them both in the same room together

 **Ruben:**  
\- you’ve seen us in the same room more times than i can count including thanksgiving  
\- tia sara hasnt kicked you both out yet, i take it? the woman must have the patience of a saint

 **Paola:**  
\- i think we’re close  
\- yesterday i ate a cookie in the living room without using a plate and she had seven different kinds of seizure, one for every crumb i got on the floor  
\- and then she got a handheld vacuum cleaner and actually vacuumed my actual shirt while i was actually wearing it

 **Ruben:**  
\- jfc  
\- im sorry i’ve doomed you to a hell of cleanliness and cardigans

 **Mercedes:**  
\- tbh ive been stealing the cardigans, theyre v soft  
\- and tia buys the good snacks  
\- so its not a bad deal  
\- apart from yknow The Reasons

 **Ruben:**  
\- im sorry about that too  
\- and everything else  
\- you shouldnt have to deal with all this crap because of me

 **Mercedes:**  
\- apology not accepted

 **Paola:**  
\- ^^^  
\- you have nothing to apologize for. we love you and we’re just glad you’re ok  
\- it’s not your fault your life is the worst

**Mercedes:**  
\- ^^^

 **Ruben:**  
\- LOOK why does nobody ever just let me wallow in my guilt please?  
\- thank you, though  
\- i love you both too

 **Paola:**  
\- gross

Moving back in with his family is something Ruben never intends to do again. Disregarding the obvious dangers he’d be going crazy within a week anyway, but in spite of that sometimes Ruben finds himself missing them so much that he’s homesick even for things he couldn’t stand about them, like the way Mercedes always sprays a suffocating amount of cheap floral bodyspray all over herself multiple times a day or the way Paola never cleans her hair out of the shower drain. 

He’s even kind of homesick for the regular visits to his Tía and Tío’s tiny, neat house halfway across the city, despite how much his mamá is ranting about them over Facetime right now.  
  
“I know she is my brother’s wife and I mustn’t be rude about family, but she is driving me loco with all her fussing. Thank goodness everyone is out for the day, is all I can say, it’s the first moment of peace I’ve had in a week,” his mom huffs. “She keeps asking why I’m not forcing you to move back home so I can look after you.”

Ruben rolls his eyes. “Did she miss the bit with, uh, the million very good reasons why I’m staying the hell out of Philadelphia? Like, the same reason why you’re even staying with her to begin with?”

“Well of course I’ve told her a thousand times, but does she listen? I’ve just started asking if Raul has called them back yet every time she starts down that road.” She sniffs disparagingly. “Criticize my parenting when your son remembers to call you more than once a month, gracias, at least my children talk to me.”

“Mamá, that’s harsh, it’s not his fault he forgets,” Ruben admonishes her, but he can’t help laughing.

“Ah, I know he tries his best. But I need something to hold against her, don’t I?” she says, laughing too. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, of course, it’s very kind of them to let us stay.”

“Buuut you’re still looking up hotel rooms, right?” he says wisely, and she smiles at him.

“We’re checking in tomorrow,” she confirms. “That gives us a week to ourselves, and then we’ll be back there on the 24th. I think it should be safe to go back to the house after that, the neighbors have been keeping watch when they can, and there’s been no sign of _him_.”

“I’m still starting to feel like it’s never gonna be properly safe while he knows you’re there.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this, actually, cariño,” his mom says, and she looks a little nervous now. Ruben sits up straighter. “How would you feel if I said I was considering moving out in the summer, once Paola has graduated?”

Ruben absorbs that, slightly shocked. “A new house? Still in Philadelphia?”

“No. No, definitely not,” she says. “Maybe even out of state.”

“ _Oh_. Huh.”

How does he feel about it? Angry, mostly, still bubbling underneath his skin from his conversation with Vanessa the other day. Why should they have to run? Why should they have to uproot their lives?

Which does nothing to change the facts. Just for his own sake, how does he feel about it? Philadelphia has been home since they came over to the mainland when he was four years old, that house has been home since he was twelve, but home is less comforting now it’s a place Ian has been, now it’s a place that reminds him more of the battles he fought with himself there than anything else. The things he misses are only because of the people, not the place. And he’d never have to go back to that part of Philadelphia again.

“I…don’t hate that, to be honest,” he says.

“Good," she says, looking relieved. "Good. It’s only an idea right now, but a fresh start for all of us might be nice. It’s done so well for you, after all. And it makes no sense to have such a big house for just me and Mercedes, now that you’ve moved out and Paola will be going to college next fall.”

“Has she heard back from any?” he asks hopefully. Good news wouldn’t go amiss.

“No, no, but it’s early yet,” says his mom, which he knows, but it’s still disappointing. “She did well in all of the retakes, so we think it will work out.”

“And what about Mercedes? If you move, I mean? She’ll have to change school.”

“I don’t think she’ll miss it here,” she answers. “There is…a lot of talk. At school, the other children. She has her friends, of course, but it is hard for her that everybody knows, and she doesn’t need that for her junior year.”

“Yeah, I’d rather not be the reason _both_ my sisters fail their exams,” Ruben says bitterly.

“Rubén…”

“Isn’t it bad enough he fucked up _my_ life?” he says. The fact his ma doesn’t pull him up for swearing says a lot, and also somehow makes him feel worse. “Wasn’t that enough for him? Does he have to poison everything for everyone around me too, and after all this time? You earned that house and he ruined it, Paola and Mercedes should just be able to go to school like normal kids instead of — and _Usnavi_ —“ he cuts off, clenches his fists and then spreads his fingers wide to try and channel his seething rage out through them. It doesn’t work.

“How is he?” his mom asks, and her gentle voice is far more effective at calming him down.

“He’s still pretty shaken up,” Ruben says, deflating. “We all are. He’s not eating or sleeping properly and it’s driving me crazy trying to figure out how to get through to him. I mean, jeez, if I believed in karma I’d say this was payback for everything I put you through.”

“Hush, Rubén, you know that’s not how we think of it.”

He stares at a point about three inches above the laptop screen and says,“when I was, was missing and things were difficult and I couldn’t call you, I hated it so much. I hated it.”

“Ah. Usnavi can’t call his mamá when he needs her.”

“He thinks he should have done more for them,” Ruben says. “He thinks it’s his fault.”

“Now doesn’t that sound familiar?” she says, wry and sad. “I don’t know. You boys. And what about your Vanessa? I hope you told her how much I appreciated her calling me after it happened, I know you have said she is…a little uncomfortable in conversations like that.”

“I did tell her. And she needed to take a break about a week ago but she’s too stubborn to actually do it. Sí, sí,” he adds, before his mom can say anything. _“Doesn’t that sound familiar too,_ I know.”

“Well, you’re all as bad as each other.” His mom reaches out in a way that seems like she’s probably touching her fingers to his face on the screen as though Ruben were actually there in front of her. “I am sorry. For all of you.”

“This shouldn’t have happened. They were just looking out for me. I’m sick of this shit, I’m sick of people who just take what they want all the time without thinking who it affects.”

He kicks a stack of papers off the coffee table petulantly. He’s allowed to be childish about this. It’s not _fair_.

“ _Ay, mijo_ , _”_ says his mom. “It’s hard to love. You want life to be better to the people you care about, it’s what we all want, and I’m sorry that it isn’t. But this is what makes people like you change the world, so that these things don’t happen to anyone else, or so that you can make better what you could not prevent.”

“I’m still making the damn drug,” Ruben says, almost to himself. “I’m not letting him have _anything_ else. I’m gonna make it even fucking better than last time without his help, and I’m gonna have them print _fuck you, Jason Cole_ right there under the name on every single prescription bottle they send out.”

“Yes, that definitely sounds like something they’d let you do,” she says. “But of course I don’t doubt you can make it even better. And Rubén…mind your language.”

“Yes, ma,” he says dutifully. “I’m sorry you might have to move.”

“It’s only a house,” says his mom. “It’s only a place. My children are all still safe. Mercedes will be fine at her new school, and Paola will go to college, and you…I think you know you will still be happy, even after all of this?”

“Yes,” he says, no hesitation, because he does know it underneath the rawness. It’s nothing new. Ruben’s patched up often enough that he could make the stitches with his eyes closed. Everyone is still alive, and they all still love each other. Everything else they can work on.

“And your queridos will come through it too, they are brave, good people, just like you,” his mom says. “I don’t need to have met them to know that.”

“I want you to meet them properly soon,” Ruben says longingly, imagining for the millionth time how good it would be to have everyone around him at the same time, just once, so he didn't have to miss anyone at all. “You’ll love them both so much.”

“I already do,” she says. “They kept my Rubén safe.”

***

It’s Vanessa, of course, who finally tells Usnavi to take a shower, and Ruben is about ready to give her everything he owns as a token of gratitude because if it had been left up to him he wouldn’t have ever said anything and it could’ve gone on for eleven months instead of eleven days. Not that he’s been counting or anything, but Ruben happens to know that the last time Usnavi showered was the morning of the day Jason showed up, and he can’t help counting the days since that. And that’s not been a fun kind of progress to be in close quarters with.

Also not fun: watching Vanessa get more and more stressed the more she helps Usnavi out - which is a lot, but unlike Ruben she doesn’t seem to be finding any relief in it, and she only has to mention her mom for it to instantly click into place as to why. And she still won’t take a break, of course, but before he can try and persuade her to actually look out for her own mental health she says “he’s been in there a while” and effectively ends the conversation. It’s a pretty weak attempt at distraction, but that doesn’t stop the annoying uncontrollable part of Ruben’s brain firing back in the space of nanoseconds a helpful list of the myriad ways Usnavi could get hurt while locked in a bathroom, accidental or otherwise - _panic attack_ , _passed out, delayed onset pulmonary edema, bleach in the cupboard razor by the sink nobody is watching out for him help him go go go_ and before he even finishes the thought he’s knocking on the bathroom door, where obviously Usnavi is neither dead nor dying, even if the dry cough he sets off from talking too loud sounds kind of painful.

Ruben rests his forehead against the door, irritated at himself for giving in to paranoia and at Vanessa for sparking it.

The first time this happened to Ruben after the basement incident, he drove two hours to get a consultation at a hospital he didn’t work at, and learned everything he could about what to look out for, and had a quiet but persistent fear buzzing in his mind until other things drove it out, though luckily he escaped mostly unscathed and it was his arm that took the worst of the damage. The second time this happened to Ruben was after the failed attempt to adminster the kill drug to Jason that ended in their suspension. It hurt a lot worse that time. He didn’t have time to get a checkup, and pretty soon after that the possibility of dying wasn’t something that particularly bothered him anyway.

They’re almost out of the initial danger zone now, at least, nearly two weeks later with no problems other than the slowly healing sore throat and the psychological fallout. Another checkup just after Christmas. No way to tell how it'll pan out in the long term, but focus on survival first.

Usnavi is alive. Usnavi will be alright. Usnavi is humming quietly to himself, Ruben can hear through the door, and it’s so good to hear any kind of music from him again, and he asked Ruben to finally do something about the fact they’ve been sleeping in the same sheets for weeks with their increasingly grody boyfriend, and being strangled twice is something Ruben sometimes forgets even happened to him because he loses track of all the shit he’s trying to juggle, and it’s all fucking fine and dandy.

He goes to the little cupboard-room where Usnavi keeps his spare sheets, hidden amidst a whole lot of other random crap. Most of Usnavi’s attempts at storage are just finding places to hide disorganized piles of miscellaneous stuff. On the way to the bedroom he leans into the kitchen and holds the sheets up triumphantly at Vanessa like they’re baby Simba in the Lion King. Vanessa does semi-sarcastic celebratory jazz hands and comes to help him with them.

“You could have just said you didn’t want to talk about it instead of trying to trick me,” he says in Usnavi’s room, shoving a pillow into a fresh case.

Vanessa looks remorseful but just shrugs, taking the bottom sheet off and throwing it into a corner.

“And if you do wanna ever talk about it then —“

“I’ll stop you there because I one thousand percent don’t,” she says, but she leans over to kiss him appreciatively. “Thankyou. I know. I’m sorry I suck at this.”

He’d tell her she doesn’t suck at it, not nearly as much as she says she does and even when she does she tries her best, but she obviously wants to drop the subject. So he concentrates on shoving the quilt inside the cover and they’ve just finished shaking it out and getting everything nice when Usnavi emerges from his incredibly long shower in a clean t-shirt and boxers, looking sleepy and flushed from the heat.

“Better?” Vanessa asks and he nods emphatically, then falls onto the bed, grabs one side of the quilt, and rolls himself up in it, peeking out over the top at them.

“New sheets feel,” he says contentedly. Vanessa kisses his forehead and Ruben tousles his fingers through Usnavi’s damp hair and they stay like that for a long silence until Usnavi un-burritos himself from the sheets to lie flat on his back with a heavy sigh.

“What’s wrong?”

Usnavi shakes both his hands out like they’re cramping, and states very calmly, “Jason could have killed me.”

Then his face goes tight like he’s in pain and Ruben’s whole body echoes the feeling back. He tries to think if he’s heard Usnavi say it that bluntly yet. “I know, _cariño_. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t even know if he was actually trying to, or if he just didn’t care either way,” Usnavi continues, no inflection whatsoever. “I was just in the way of him getting to you. He didn’t care if people would miss me. He didn’t even know my name.”

“I know,” says Ruben again.

“Obviously his opinion is jack-shit worthless, but it felt. It felt like I wasn’t a real person and it was fucking unbearable.” He looks up at Ruben forlornly. “How did you deal with that for so long?”

“Uh…badly?” Ruben says, and Usnavi makes a _yeah fair enough_ face.

“You know the fucked up thing? Well, all of it, but one of the things,” Vanessa says, laying down and resting her head against Usnavi’s shoulder. “It’s fucked up that _he’s_ real. Not that we doubted the backstory or anything. But he wasn’t ever supposed to be real here, for us. You know?"

“Yes!” Usnavi exclaims, too enthusiastically so he starts coughing. Vanessa lifts her head back up again to avoid being shouldered in the face until he’s finished. “Augh, fuck. Yes. It’s like if you were watching Harry Potter and fuckin’ Darth Vader showed up instead of Voldemort. Like, dude, either way you’re obviously the villain, but you’re in the wrong story right now, leave the wizard kids alone.”

“This analogy is confusing,” says Ruben. “Am I Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker in this scenario?”

“You’re clearly Obi-wan, but that’s not my point,” says Usnavi. “My point is…Jason’s meant to be _your_ bad guy, and that story’s meant to be over. He’s not supposed to have been here now, in _my_ store, or— it’s just weird to have this person I hated because of what he did to you get all mixed up with how I feel about things that happened way before I even knew you existed. And now I have to hate him for my own sake as well as yours.” He touches his throat. “It’s like he took all the shit already going on and made it into this. I don’t like missing them, but they’re _mine_ and he’s got his entitled asshole fingerprints all over my feelings about them, and I hate it.”

His voice goes scratchy again towards the end, and he gives one more quiet dry cough that makes Vanessa shove herself up angrily off the bed.

“He doesn't deserve them. He shouldn’t be anywhere near them,” she says, pointing fiercely at Usnavi like she’s telling him off, and she storms out of the room.

Ruben looks at Usnavi. Usnavi shrugs. He can hear Vanessa in the kitchen, opening and shutting drawers loudly and shuffling things around.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get rid of them while he was still mostly Anakin,” Ruben says. “Should’ve pitched him into the fucking volcano and to hell with the Jedi code.”

“Hey now, not your fault he’s darkside, Ru-Ben Kenobi,” Usnavi says. “That force-choke, though.” He makes the appropriate squeezing gesture. “ _I find your boyfriend disturbing.”_

“Ugh, don’t, last thing my nightmares need is added Sith powers,” says Ruben, as Vanessa comes back in.

“Okay, not the most impressive,” she says. “But it’s all I could find, and we work with what we got, right?” And she sets three half-melted pillar candles across the sill of Usnavi’s bedroom window with three loud _thunks_ , flicks the purple lighter Usnavi was using for his no-longer-secret smoking habit before all this went down.

“Rosa, Mateo, Abuela,” she says, aggressive stance softening as she points in turn. “If they’re gonna be around anyway, let’s make sure they’re in something he never touched.”

“Oh,” Usnavi breathes as the flames take one, two, three. Vanessa lets her hand rest reverently on the sill in front of them for a moment before she comes back to cuddle with Usnavi, a hand on his face with her thumb rubbing his cheekbone the way Usnavi usually does with her. Ruben thinks Vanessa sometimes needs to copy other people’s comfort actions too, but it doesn’t mean less for being borrowed when it’s done with so much love.

“You haven’t lit a candle for them in a while, querido,” she says. “No wonder it seems so dark.”

This is a ritual Ruben’s been adjacent to before in fragments, though it isn’t something they’ve ever discussed in much depth. But it’s something he remembers from his own childhood, and on more than one occasion he’s seen Usnavi leaving for the same church he says Abuela Claudia used to pray in. Sometimes Vanessa joins him, or more often she just says _light one for them from me_ , and Ruben never knows whether he’s supposed to say anything at all.

His mamá lit candles for him too. She said that she did it so he could find his way home, and when they accepted that he wasn’t coming back, she did it so that he’d know they were thinking about him always. She says she knew that somehow it would find him, wherever he was, that he’d be able to feel how much they missed him, how they still felt him with them. He won’t ever tell her that he felt nothing like that at all, he only ever felt their absence. It doesn’t hurt him for her to believe she had that connection. Or maybe something did pull him home and Ruben just doesn’t know how to recognize whatever it was. There’s a lot of things Ruben doesn’t know.

Like he’s not sure he knows this peaceful, melancholy Usnavi and Vanessa side-by-side lost in their own thoughts. It’s like looking through a window to a time when they were just Vanessa-and-Usnavi, and it fills him with a sudden yearning for the pieces of their history he’ll never be a part of. It’s something unbridgeable and unchangeable: the awareness that Usnavi’s family are people Vanessa can miss not just because Usnavi misses them but because she knew them for so long too, and Ruben never will. That Vanessa, like Usnavi, can’t call her mom when she needs comfort, that Usnavi had so many nights of sleeping alone with his loss when it was new, that neither of them were there to comfort Ruben’s mom and light candles for him with her when he was gone. That if he'd died in Jamaica, it would have had no impact on their lives.

It doesn’t make them love him less, he knows. Still: he won’t ever be entirely theirs, because there’s too many things that happen outside of his place in their lives, and sometimes this awareness echoes in that lessened but never quite erased part of Ruben that’s always been too quick to dissolve himself completely in a thing that he loves.

There’s a shock of reassurance too though, whenever he realizes that’s still a thing he _can_ want. He doesn’t have to chase it, and he won’t. But he’s still capable of feeling that deep. Not that it should keep surprising him how much they mean to him, how much he wishes he could walk beside them through their memories or their beliefs or the things that make them hurt. He never fully will, and that makes it feel like it’s almost intrusive to be here, like he’s appropriating their past. It’s not his call to the dead. But Vanessa reaches across Usnavi to take Ruben’s hand, so he knows he isn’t unwelcome, and instead of trying to see the shape of a grief he doesn’t hold in the flicker of the flame, he carries on observing their faces instead. He watches Usnavi entranced by the candles, Vanessa with her eyes soft and daydreaming, and thinks he might know what Abuela Claudia would have told him to have faith in if he’d ever met her.

***

Usnavi’s on the couch as per usual when Ruben comes back home, but he’s sitting up and he’s agitated, changing positions four times in the time it takes Ruben to set his phone down and come kiss him hello.

“No Vanessa?” Ruben asks.

Usnavi shakes his head. “She said she needed to head out and, quote, do some stuff.”

“Sounds fun. How was the park today?”  
  
“Park was good. Good to get out. I should do it again sometime,” says Usnavi, but he still looks nervous.

“Okay, spill.”  
  
“Hm?”

“Whatever’s making you all _this.”_

“Right,” Usnavi says, and stares down at his left hand where he’s carefully pressing the tips of his fingers against his thumb in continual sequence: index-middle-ring-pinky-ring-middle-index _. “_ Why didn’t you tell us before that you were suicidal after Jamaica?”

“Jesus,” says Ruben, flinching. “Right to the point.”  
  
“I’ve been sitting here for an hour trying to think of the best way to say it, and I couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t just drag it out, and I want to know why you’ve told us everything else but not that,” Usnavi says frankly, still looking down at his hands.

A pain kind of like hunger but not. He isn’t really sure himself, other than it’s harder to make sense of, and harder to be certain that it’s all in the past. “I don’t really know what you want me to say about it.”

“Anything, as long as it’s the truth. Or as much of the truth as you’re willing to give, at least.”

They’re talking at a fast clip, barely letting each other finish a sentence before starting their own. He suspects Usnavi wants this conversation over with as quickly as Ruben does.

“I didn’t tell you because sometimes it’s scarier to me than anything Ian ever did,” Ruben says.

“Yeah?”

“Knowing that I can’t trust my own mind. Knowing that I could survive rock bottom and instead of things starting to get better right away I just found another different rock bottom.”

“Okay,” says Usnavi, in a measured voice that Ruben knows is very, very faked. “Do you want to talk about why you wanted to do that to yourself?”

“Not particularly,” says Ruben, since Usnavi did ask for the truth. “But I think you want me to, so I will: because it felt like it had already happened and I was waiting for the rest of me to catch up. It felt like Ian had killed me in the warehouse and I was just living dead. Everyone who would have cared thought I was gone anyway and I couldn’t even imagine a future past whatever day I was living. Nobody would have missed me if I did it in Jamaica. It wouldn’t have been a loss. It would have been easier than the alternative.”

Usnavi’s brow furrows so hard his eyebrows practically meet in the middle. “It _would_ have been a loss,” he insists furiously, grabbing Ruben by one shoulder. “We would never have known you.”

“Alright, alright, but I wasn’t really planning ahead for future threesomes at that point,” Ruben reminds him. 

“You shoulda been,” Usnavi scowls. “What about after Jamaica?”  
  
“Well. It had turned into a habit by then,” Ruben answers, almost apologetic. “And some days it hurt more to try and get better, because I had to look it all in the face instead of just spacing out. But I had reasons to stay by then. I couldn’t make them mourn me a second time. It would have been cruel.”

“And…now?”

“No,” he says. “Or, I mean, sometimes I _forget_ that I don’t want to but it’s not real, like the flashbacks. It’s…residual. It’s only been a couple years since it happened. I forget that two years isn’t really very long sometimes.”

Usnavi looks devastated even by that, but he nods, and like in response to his signal the pace of the conversation slows. “Sometimes I forget they’ve been gone as long as they have. Sometimes when I’m real tired I come home and open the door on my old room because I forget I’ve been sleeping in their— in the other one for years.”

God, that’s sad. It’s funny how things that have become a normal part of life to Ruben sound so much worse when someone else feels the same way.

“Residual,” Ruben repeats, and Usnavi makes an affirmative noise.

“It’s been on my mind a lot recently,” Ruben says quickly before he talks himself out of it, and then mentally chastises himself for the phrasing when Usnavi gives him a piercing, panicked look. “Not wanting to do it. Just thinking about the fact I did want to, once.”

“Because I’m all messed up like how you used to be, right?” Usnavi asks quietly, holds a hand up to stall Ruben’s unconvincing denial. “I’m not completely clueless, Ruben. I know this reminds Vanessa of her mom. I know this must remind you of everything too. Is it because of me?”

He answers honestly again, because he owes Usnavi that much. “Some of it’s just seeing Jason again in general. But yeah, that’s part of it too.” 

Usnavi puts both his hands over his face, nods again as though that’s what he was expecting to hear.  
  
“That doesn’t mean it’s your fault,” Ruben carries on. “I don’t blame you for anything, not even you going to meet Jason or fighting with him. You were trying to keep me safe, and you got hit with it instead, and…” he pauses so he can get it right. “I guess I’m thinking about it a lot so I don’t miss anything important. So this part can be easier for you than it was for me.”

From behind his hands Usnavi whispers “do you think it will be, though? I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing to get better and we all keep acting like I'm the same as you were. What if I fuck up again and—" he breaks off with a whimper.

Oh, no.

Ruben grabs Usnavi’s arms but doesn’t try and pull them down, just runs his thumbs over the delicate skin of the inside of Usnavi’s wrists. “It doesn’t have to be the same,” he says, and he’s reminding both of them. “It’s not inevitable, I promise. There’s so many people here with you, Usnavi, things are so different. I know you’re still scared.”

“Vanessa said she’d kick my ass.”

“Yeah? That makes two of us.” He lets go of Usnavi’s arms to look him over thoughtfully. “Hey. Did you ever get help, after any of your stuff happened?”

“After my parents? I had Abuela,” Usnavi says, uncovering his face but still nervously running his thumb over his lips while he speaks. “And after she was gone I still had the Rosarios and Vanessa and Benny and everyone.”

“I’m glad you did. I know how much they mean to you. But I meant professional help,” says Ruben, gently. “Grief counselling. Something like that.”

“On whose dime?” Usnavi snorts and Ruben winces. Shit, he trips into that mistake way more often than he’s happy with. Ruben’s family have never been rich but he forgets how relative _comfortable_ can be. Times were tight for a while, especially right after his dad left, but he was never poor like Usnavi was, like Vanessa was, apart from those two months in Jamaica.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he means for everything. It shouldn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be something Usnavi thinks of as a luxury.

“Todo bien _,_ that’s life in the barrio, buddy. Always another rent check comin’ out too soon,” Usnavi says, no trace of the brittleness from moments before. It’s hard to know if it’s an act or if he’s really that all over the place with his emotions. “ _Ay_ , don’t make that face, we all get by. Just gotta keep going with your head above water as best you can and keep up the hope that whatever’s on the horizon is a lifeboat and not a shark.”

“Sometimes I can’t tell if you say things like that because you’re the most optimistic person I’ve ever met or if it’s because you’re more cynical than me and Vanessa put together,” says Ruben. 

“You know, I ain’t sure either,” says Usnavi. “Don’t see why I can’t be both. _I am large, I contain multitudes_.”

“You aren’t large,” says Ruben, wraps himself around Usnavi like to demonstrate _look how easy I can hold all of you. “_ So small. Adorable.”

“It’s poetry, jackass,” says Usnavi, shoving against Ruben’s shoulder with his own and then staying leaned into the hug. “And Vanessa’s the shortest, why do you never do this to her?”

“So small,” Ruben repeats obstinately. He’s only mostly teasing. Vanessa doesn’t need her heels to give off the impression of being tall, and it’s true that Usnavi when he’s on top of his game always seems to fill whatever room he’s in, and Ruben’s barely bigger than either of them physically speaking but even so, sometimes they seem so tiny in a different, more vulnerable way, one that scares the hell out of him. Ruben doesn’t know if it’s that they look smaller when you know them well enough to see all the places inside them that were never given a chance to grow, or if it’s just that Ruben has grown so much more since the first time they met.

“Is it something you’d consider now, the therapy thing?” he asks, getting back on subject. “Hypothetically, I know the money.”

Ruben would give him every last cent in hisbank account if Usnavi said it would help, but Usnavi says “hypothetically I don’t need to pay out the ass for some quack to get all up inside my head and tell me I’m made wrong or I don’t know how to think properly” with a razor-edge under the words.

“That’s _not_ what therapy is,” snaps Ruben, instantly defensive, and Usnavi’s face softens with regret.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Not knocking it for people who it helps,” he says. “It ain’t for me, though. And it’s not an option anyway.”

“If you wanted it we’d find a way.”

“I don’t want it. I’ve told you how I feel about all of those kinda things. I don’t trust them to do it right.”

“Okay,” says Ruben. “But you know that even without therapy there’s more effective approaches than just, y’know, hoping really hard that things get better? I’m not trying to get at you or anything but…you aren’t exactly on top of your own emotions.”

“It’s not like I’m in denial,” Usnavi says, frustrated. “I just…feel too many weird things and then I get confused. I don’t know why.”

“There’s actually a name for—never mind,” he decides, seeing Usnavi’s face. Ruben doesn’t think he’ll ever understand why Usnavi’s so against even the most basic of labels for this kind of thing. It’s not like he ever minds it when people call him bisexual or Dominican or latino or any of the myriad other identities a person is constructed of. He gets not wanting to yell your entire self across the rooftops - though Usnavi’s loud and proud about all the other stuff - but it’s incomprehensible to him that Usnavi doesn’t even want it to keep in his own head when things like that might actually help him understand himself a little more. But he’s not willing to fight on that hill today, it’s not the right time to talk about it. “Well, like I said. Having an actual plan of action might make you feel better.”

“It might,” Usnavi says, tentatively. “I mean. I do like my lists.”

“You do like your lists,” Ruben agrees. “There’s some stuff that helped me, once I decided I didn’t want to carry on the therapy thing when I moved here. I’d got kinda sick of it by that point.”

“I can imagine.” Usnavi looks up at Ruben from underneath his lashes. “Will…will you help me? I wanna get better, I do. But I don’t even know where the fuck to start.”

Ruben’s first instinct is to just say _yes, I’d do anything, I’d give you anything as long as it helped._

Bad habit. He ignores it. “Two conditions.”

“Okay?”

“One, I can give you advice and point you in the right direction, but I can’t actually do this _for_ you. You gotta put in the work. Which also means you have to ask for help when you need it.”

“I’m pretty good at working.”  
  
“It won’t be easy.”  
  
“Neither is feeling like this,” Usnavi says. “Condition accepted. Second thing?”  
  
“Second thing: if it starts to seem like it’s something we can’t handle by ourselves, you’re gonna let me and Vanessa help you pay for therapy.”

“But—“ Usnavi doesn’t have an actual argument, but he makes a wrinkled-nose face that pretty much puts his feeling across.

God, Ruben hates this. He doesn’t like pushing for anything that Usnavi doesn’t want to do. But he thinks of his mother saying _I know you don’t want to but you need to eat_ and Paola saying _you might wanna give up but I’m sorry, that’s just not an option_ and Mercedes saying _come on, Ruben, we don’t have to go further than the front porch but you need to go outside sometime._ Vanessa insisting that she tell Ruben the things Usnavi wouldn’t say for himself, insisting that Usnavi go for a walk or take a shower, all of it helping far more than just leaving him to it.

It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, being pushy. It’s only what you do with it that can make it dangerous.

“No,” Ruben says, firmly. “Look. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that I don’t trust myself not to take a step back and make some distance if it gets too much, not unless we already have a backup plan in place. It’d feel too much like abandoning you. Vanessa’s not gonna be here after January, and I think you think I have all the answers but I don’t. And I’m not risking my sanity again. I’m not losing myself for anything. Not even for you.”

Usnavi looks startled but it only takes a second for him to answer, “I wouldn’t want you to. You think I’d be able to be happy if it meant taking it away from you?” He sighs, but sets his shoulders with a determined look. “If that’s what it takes, then. Yeah. Okay. It’s a deal.”

He holds his hand out to shake on it. What a dork. Ruben takes it and kisses his knuckles instead.  


“For what it’s worth, I don’t think we’ll need it,” Ruben tells him, and that seems to brighten Usnavi’s mood by a fraction. “It’s just a safety net.”

_You can’t keep him safe from his own thoughts if that’s the way things are going to go_ , says the pessimistic - realistic? - part of him.

 _Yeah? Fucking watch me_ , he thinks back viciously. That’s _not_ the way things are going to go, not this time, not for any of them. Ruben’s never needed realistic before. All he ever needed is the tiniest bit of hope, a place to start looking, and a notebook to write it all down in.

“Your face just went all weird and intense,” Usnavi informs him, helpfully poking him in the cheek. “You look like you ate a bee.”

“That’s my research face,” Ruben says. He leans to grab his laptop and his notebook where they’re stacked on the coffee table with one hand, and pulls Usnavi close to his side with the other arm. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. You ready to kick this thing’s ass?”

“ _Hell_ yes I am,” says Usnavi, punching the air.

***

After that enthusiasm, recovery starts as recovery always does: with an anticlimax, because baby steps are rarely impressive but are definitely more sustainable. For now, all Ruben’s got Usnavi doing is making sure to get dressed every day.  
  
“Even if you don’t do anything for the whole rest of the day, or even if it’s just changing into different pajamas,” Ruben had told him. “As long as it’s not what you slept in last night.”

“Seems…easy,” Usnavi had said, suspiciously, but then this morning Ruben and Vanessa are rushing about getting ready for work and heading back into the bedroom he finds Usnavi in the exact same position he was about half an hour ago: sitting on the edge of the bed holding his jeans, with his eyes far away and mouth slightly open. Ruben clears his throat. 

Usnavi jumps, bringing his arm up defensively in front of his neck, then looks embarrassed. “Yup?”

“You have to put your legs in them for it to count as getting dressed,” Ruben says, and it doesn’t escape his notice that the vacant look doesn’t fade, or that Usnavi’s movements are delayed like he’s in slow motion, or that he spaces out again taking his shirt out of the closet.

But he kisses them both goodbye at the door with Ruben’s fingers hooking in the belt-loop of his jeans, with Vanessa’s thumb running over one of the buttons on his red shirt, and he looks so fucking pleased with himself that Ruben doesn’t know whether to feel proud or whether he wants to cry.

Vanessa’s apparently going full speed for pride, if the happiness radiating off her is anything to go by.

“Did you see that, Ruben, we have a boyfriend who showers and wears clothes again!” she says as they leave the building. There’s a bounce in her step that Ruben’s only just noticed has been absent for a while. “¡Wepa! You shoulda been a counsellor, if this is how fast you work.”

That’s overstating it. It sounds like she’s getting her hopes up a little too high.

“I’m happy for him too, but remember it’s only day one, step one. You know there’s gonna be a lot of ups and downs on this, right? Just because he does it today doesn’t mean it won’t be harder tomorrow.”

“Well, aren’t you a little raincloud?” she says. “Yes, Ruben, I do know that, but it don’t hurt to appreciate progress when it happens.”

“Is that what’s got you so upbeat this morning?”

“Not just that,” she says, and tells him with a breathless laugh about her evening yesterday, tells him that Sonny’s been doing a little door-to-door on Usnavi’s behalf, tells him how much money has been raised so far.

“…Damn,” he says, amazed. “That’s. Holy _shit_.”

“Right?“ Vanessa says, and beams at him. “I think we might just be able to do this. You got the whole plan to help with his crazy, I can make sure to get his ass out of the apartment every once in a while, and he’s gonna flip when he finds out about the fundraiser thing and…man, Sonny is the best kid. The _best_ kid.”

She laughs again, giddy, and lifts Ruben’s hand so she can spin under it then kisses him on the nose. He smiles back at her. He might be a raincloud but she’s so full of sunshine at the minute that Ruben’s pretty sure he could get a tan just by standing near her. He loves it when he sees her like this: Vanessa’s as much a secret optimist as Usnavi is a lowkey skeptic, despite how they seem on the surface. _We contain multitudes_ , he thinks, and it warms him. He forgets to even check around him to see if they’re being watched as he takes her hand for the rest of the walk to the station.

And Sonny, as it turns out, really is the best kid, because Ruben gets a message from him later in the afternoon that says _take the evening off if you want_ with a picture of Usnavi sprawled out on his stomach on the floor, chin in his hands in front of the TV in an exaggeratedly childish pose, watching…god knows what. One of those unsettlingly ugly CGI animations. Goddammit. They only do this to mess up the algorithm so Ruben’s forever being recommended low-budget movies about talking dogs playing sports.

**Ruben:**  
\- you know i don’t HAVE to let you guys use my netflix  
\- i could just change the password  
\- then where would you be

 **Sonny:**  
\- hey this for ur benefit. previewin the content so u know its safe for rubens.  
\- ud like this 1. its teachin us all about science!  
\- u could learn so much

 **Ruben:**  
\- im pretty sure this children’s show will not hold any educational value for me

 **Sonny:**  
\- oh well fuckin look at u  
\- sry we’re not up to ur level Mr Did I Mention I Have A PhD

 **Ruben:**  
\- thats Dr Did I Mention I Have A PhD to you, kid

He’s not really mad, of course. Sonny sends a picture of himself smiling widely and flipping Ruben off, Usnavi grinning in the background, and Ruben gets back to his work feeling like the raincloud is barely even drizzling at the minute.

It’s not everything, it’s not perfect. Like he said to Vanessa, even in the space of a single day there’s still rollercoasters.

There’s later that night with the three of them in bed, a prolonged goodnight kiss that’s almost too much but isn’t nearly enough both at the same time. He wants to want more than this, and he still can’t even roll his sleeves up around them. And then as it turns out, _more_ is something Usnavi’s not in a place for yet either, and even though it’s not for the same reasons it’s another parallel Ruben didn’t want to exist.

Then there’s Usnavi frantically trying to throw himself out of bed like he’s intending to go out apartment hunting naked in the middle of the night, repeating anxiously that he has nowhere to live. Vanessa and Ruben discussed this with each other weeks ago, before Jason was even in New York, that of course they’re always an option if Usnavi needs more time to get things sorted. Somehow in all the confusion the message didn’t get relayed and Usnavi’s apparently been quietly worrying about that this whole time on top of everything else - why does he keep not _telling_ them what’s on his mind?

So it’s not as simple as wanting everyone to be better and taking a straight road there, but it’s starting to feel like there’s tangible solutions. Ruben’s hands against Usnavi’s bare skin feel good and feel protective and feel like Ruben can be something so much more and better than he ever thought possible.Vanessa throws out a casual “you can stay at mine the whole time I’m gone, if you like” and Ruben knows exactly how not-casual an offer like that is from her, and somehow even though Usnavi’s the one sort-of moving in with her he knows the sentiment behind it extends to him too.

So even though he knows none of this solves the overarching problem entirely, he’s dealt with big change enough to also recognise this: a point in the aftermath where momentum picks up so that even though they’re not off the uphill yet, it gives some hope that things might be levelling out.

***

The best thing, perhaps, about working at a college is that Ruben actually gets a couple weeks off for Christmas. There’s marking to do over the break, of course, and an extra half-day on campus today to tie up various loose ends, but other than that, he has until the New Year to just do nothing. Well, technically he’s could be getting back in touch with the lab regarding Blackout, but…maybe not yet. And he’s looking forward to a lengthy Christmas. He likes Christmas. It’s one of the few good things Jason and Ian and even the long loneliness of Ruben’s pre-Everything life never managed to get their hands on.

Business first, though, even after the half-day at college is over: they’re going to start moving Usnavi out tomorrow, so he detours into the car rental up the street from his place on the way back home.

He’s pleased to see that Kevin Rosario is on shift when he comes in - not that Ruben can’t hire a car from a stranger, but it’s always more pleasant to have a familiar face. Camila is there too, holding a paper bag in her hands and listening to Kevin ranting with a long-suffering smile that she directs at Ruben as he comes in. Ruben waves, but doesn’t interrupt.

“—not my job to be on front desk, but they disappear off on these so-called  _lunch breaks_ and leave me to run the whole thing myself,” Kevin is saying. “If I was the boss here it’d be different, I’m telling you. An hour and fifteen minutes for lunch, are you kidding me? When I ran that dispatch—“

“Oh, always _when I ran the dispatch_ , who’s the one who sold it? Anyway, I keep telling you, you’re a senior manager, you basically are the boss on your shift,” Camila says, exasperated.

“And I keep telling you, until I can fire those lazy do-nothing new hires without having to ask someone else for permission first then I am definitely _not_ the boss.”

“Well, I for one think it’s good that there’s somebody else you have to answer to here. Keeps you in line, takes some of the work off my shoulders,” she says. “Besides, here you are talking about people not doing their jobs while Rubén is waiting so patiently for you to do yours. I’m sure he didn’t come to listen to you complain.”

“Of course, of course,” says Kevin. “My apologies, Rubén, how can I help you?”

Ruben leans an elbow on the counter and says “that’s actually _exactly_ why I came here, tell me more about this lunchbreak situation.”

“Keep your sass and book a damn car,” Kevin grumbles. 

“Need one for tomorrow,” Ruben says. “Just for the day, whichever has most trunk space.”

“Bien entonces. Let me check the system and see what I can do for you,” says Kevin, typing slowly into the computer. “Going on a trip?”

“Helping Usnavi move his stuff out. He’s crashing with Vanessa till he finds a new apartment.”

“Ah, I see,” says Kevin. “Wouldn’t it be easier to go with a moving company, in that case?”

“It’s…kind of a lot for him?” Ruben tries to explain. “We’re spacing it out over the next few weeks so its less, y'know, aaagh. Easier if it’s just us going at his pace.”

Kevin nods understandingly and they talk through the nitty-gritty and book the car. It’s kind of expensive at this late notice, but Ruben can afford it and he’s hoping if he just doesn’t mention it Usnavi might forget to insist on paying him back. When they’ve finished, Camila sets the paper bag down on the desk beside Kevin, kisses him on the cheek, and then asks Ruben if he’d like to come over for coffee before he heads back home.

“You’ve all been keeping very quiet,” she tells him. “It would be nice to hear an update.”

“I’m always quiet,” he says, but he goes back with her anyway. It’s hard to refuse Camila’s aggressively maternal brand of forwardness, and besides which he likes her, finds her unusually easy to spend time with largely because she entirely ignores all the ways in which he doesn’t find it easy so he can pretend that she hasn’t even noticed that he’s awkward as hell. And he trusts her affection towards Usnavi enough to know she won’t be asking questions just to spread rumours, though she will of course be asking questions.

As if she knows what he’s thinking, once he’s settled in the Rosario’s bright, neat kitchen, Camila says “I’m sure you know what I’m going to say." She sets his coffee down in front of him.

“I can probably take a guess.”

She takes her own seat. “I know someone would have told us if things had taken a turn for the worse, but we do still worry.”

“I know. There’s just been so much to think about. We’re all doing okay right now, though,” Ruben says. “Well, or me and Vanessa are alright, and Usnavi’s getting there, and we’ve got some next steps lined up for him." He sips his coffee. It's not great, but it's not bad. He's probably just been spoilt, having Usnavi and his skills basically on tap. "I heard about the fundraiser thing, too, that’ll take a weight off once Sonny tells him about it.”

“Ah yes, we donated to that. Sonny is certainly persuasive. Not that we ever need persuading to help Usnavi, but he gave us a _very_ passionate sales pitch anyway.”  


“It’s amazing how many people got involved. I’m pretty sure it’ll blow his mind.”

A fond look steals over Camila’s face. “Probably, but it really shouldn’t. We’ve all watched that boy grow up and go through so much. You’d think by now he’d know that everyone wants to see him happy.”

“I hope it helps,” he says, and he wouldn’t usually expand on this any more. But just like pushing can sometimes be good, perhaps staying so intensely private isn’t always necessarily the best option. Or at least not for Usnavi, even if it’s what Ruben would do for himself. That Netflix evening with Sonny seemed to do a lot of good, and the Rosario’s are Usnavi’s family too. “I think he needs to be reminded that people are thinking about him, that he’s still important to them even when he’s not making them coffee and all that. He’s been kinda…disconnected. And I think not having the store probably makes it hard to find an easy way back into things. Though I’m no expert on that myself.”

“Hmm,” says Camila, and then apparently changing track rapidly, “did you know I was good friends with Usnavi’s parents?” 

Ruben has assumed as much from how close they are to Usnavi, but he shakes his head because he wants to hear her tell him more.

“They were very much like him, in their different ways. Both of them very kind. He’s sweet like his father was and that sense of humour is so much like his mother. The talking is from Mateo,” she says with a smirk. “The music is from Rosa. And obviously you can tell he was raised by Claudia, too, in so many ways.”

“I know a lot more about her than I do about his parents,” Ruben says. “He tells me little things but I get the feeling it’s harder for him to think about them. I wish I could have known them.”

“They were the kind of people everyone wants to know,” she agrees. “But another reason we got on so well with them is that they saw raising a child in much the same way Kevin and I did. Always with love, of course, but wanting them to grow up independent and strong and able to take care of themselves, able to weather the storms. I think that’s why Usnavi and Vanessa were always so close with my Nina. Well, obviously Vanessa’s mother is—“ she makes a disapproving sound. “But Vanessa wanted to be that way for her own sake, and Daniela keeps her on the right track, so. They all have things they want so fiercely. They are all trying to grow all the time.”

She stirs her drink with a contemplative look. “Sometimes I wonder if we were a little too successful in making them independent. All three of them find it so hard to ask for help.”

“I’ll say,” Ruben mutters. “I knew that about Vanessa, it’s kind of obvious from the second you meet her, but it really caught me off-guard with Usnavi. And it shouldn’t have done. I’m supposed to be his boyfriend and I didn’t even know that about him?”

“You can’t know everything about someone.”

“I shouldn’t have missed it,” Ruben insists. 

Camila sits back in her chair and sips at her drink. “You know, there’s a strange realization I seem to have many times as a parent, which is that the longer you and your child spend in the world together, the less you know who they really are.”

Ruben tilts his head, uncomprehending. Camila is very wise, but her routes towards it are often a little hard to follow.

“There’s not anything you aren’t there for when they’re just a baby. They’re with you all the time,” she explains. “And then one day they’re talking about a book you didn’t read to them, a friend you’ve never met, they’re at a college you never went to…they have their own families, their own lives. It’s a bittersweet thing if you do your job right, because they don’t need to come to you for every bruise and scrape and skinned knee once they grow up. But you never stop wanting them to, you never stop wishing you could protect them from everything. And you never love them less for being a mystery. You just hope they realise they still have somewhere to go if they need to.”

“Usnavi and Vanessa don’t have that,” Ruben says, overwhelmed with the unfairness. It’s only been clear to him in hindsight that he should’ve told his mom he was in trouble long before it got to the point where he had to flee the country. His short experience of being cut off from the certainty of having a home to return to was long enough that he's more careful with it now, he’s too grateful for what he has to not appreciate it.

“No,” Camila sighs. “And there’s no replacing something like that once it’s lost, or if it never was in the first place. None of us could claim that role in their lives. But they are very loved anyway, even when they are strange to us. Or when they won’t ask for our help. Love isn’t about always knowing someone, it’s about being ready to learn as you go, and waiting for them until they’re ready to seek you out.”

“I’m really glad they aren’t alone,” Ruben says, voice cracking. He’s so glad. He keeps telling himself it’s different this time, but it’s suddenly brought home to him how true that actually is. Neither of them will ever slip through the cracks like Ruben did.

“That means you too, Rubén,” Camila says softly. “If you ever need our help, all you have to do is ask,” and she always sounds so much like his mother when she says his name that Ruben ducks his head to hide the fact he’s welling up.

“Hey now,” she frowns at him, obviously not fooled for a second. “What’s this? No tears, por favor. Talk to me.”

“It’s okay. I’m not sad,” he reassures her. He doesn’t know how he feels, but it’s definitely not sad. “I really appreciate that. I’m not, I’m not an easy person to make friends with. Never have been, and even less after—even less now. And most of you have had like an entire lifetime together. I know I’m not really one of you. You can’t know how much it means that I’ve always felt so welcome here anyway.”

Camila purses her lips and scrutinizes him intently in silence. He doesn’t cringe away from it.

“I won’t pretend that I understand you, Rubén,” she says, finally, “because I don’t. Not what you’ve been through, or your relationship with Usnavi and Vanessa, or any of it. But you don’t need to understand someone to care about them. Have you never cared about someone who doesn’t make any sense to you?”

“Nobody makes much sense to me, to be honest,” Ruben says.

“Well, there you go then. And less of this tontería about _not one of you,_ you’re not applying to join an exclusive club. You’re a good man, you try your best to be good to people we care about, we enjoy your company when you are willing to share it, doesn’t that make you one of us?”

“…Does it?” asks Ruben, helplessly.

Camila just tuts affectionately and pats him on the shoulder as she stands to refill their mugs.

_Does_ it?

***

The momentum continues: they move apartments, they sleep, they eat, they keep rebuilding. Usnavi finds out about the fundraiser and happy-cries for about half an evening, Vanessa grumbles with sparkling eyes about them taking over her apartment, Ruben takes full advantage of the other two going out dancing to lie starfish on the bed listening to podcasts in a short-sleeved t-shirt, just because he can. He’s been craving more alone time the past few days, which somehow seems like a good sign: the idea of it is more relaxing than terrifying, now that the threat of Jason is fading away, now that his brain has settled enough to know that being on his own doesn't have to mean being alone, or being lonely.

He said he’d wait up for them but apparently failed at that, because he wakes up confused with the lights still on at the sound of the front door. No time for any fear instinct to kick in, because he can hear Usnavi chattering away and Vanessa’s quiet laughter.

“Oh, shush, don’t wake Ruben up,” Usnavi says loudly when they come into the bedroom, just as Ruben’s sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Yeah, Vanessa, jeez, shut up,” Ruben scolds her. She makes a _hey what the fuck_ gesture. “Good night?”

“I had fun,” Usnavi says. “I had _fun_.”

“Try not to sound like it’s the first time in your life, babe, you’re gonna bum me out again,” says Vanessa, making a satisfied sound as she kicks off her heels. She strips off her dress and crawls into bed in just her underwear to cuddle up next to Ruben, and it’s only when her arms encircle his that they both realise he’s not in long sleeves for the first time in weeks. “Oh. Is this okay, do you want to change?”

Ruben’s pulse is trying to quicken into panic, but he’s not gonna let it. “Turn the light out and I’ll be fine,” he says, and sure enough the cover of darkness eases his anxiety to something he'll be able to forget if he focuses on them instead of himself.

Usnavi makes a graceless attempt to squish himself in between them both and then starts giggling to himself. “I had fun,” he says for a third time.

“Fun and how many drinks, exactly?” Ruben asks.

Vanessa holds up three fingers and says “I’m sure he never used to be this much of a lightweight. He was fine walking home.”

“I’m only drunk on life,” Usnavi says. “And…this is just crazy, right?”

“What, the fact that I haven’t complained yet about your skinny ass sitting all over me?” says Vanessa. “Yeah, totally crazy. Move over, I’m trying to appreciate my Ruben pillow and all I can feel is your entire skeleton digging into me. And take your jeans off.”

Usnavi obliges, rolling to the side and sticking his legs straight up into the air to wiggle awkwardly out of his pants, and says “I stayed up till two am dancing. I don’t have to go to work. That’s insane. I coulda got totally wasted and not had to work on a hangover. I could stay up all night if I wanted.”

“You probably shouldn’t.”

“I ain’t gonna. But I _could_. I can do whatever I want to.”

He sounds so genuinely awestruck. It’s sad that it’s apparently the first time he’s had this kind of freedom, but the wonder in his voice is unbelievably sweet.

“So what _do_ you wanna do?” Vanessa asks.

Usnavi thinks about it. “I wanna sleep in late tomorrow. And I’m goin’ to see the Rosarios before they fly to Nina’s in the afternoon. And we should get a Christmas tree. I’d like to go to the park more often. I miss hanging out with Benny. I wanna be able to say yes when people invite me to stuff and not have to leave early, and to go out for breakfast on a weekend, and I wanna spend a night getting high and watching movies, and —“

“Woah, that’s probably enough to start off with, says Vanessa, laughing. "We can do the sleeping in and the tree tomorrow, except one of you will have to get it, I told my mom I’d drop by before she went to Tía Martina’s.”

She makes a face, but doesn’t look too unhappy about it. Vanessa and her mom work okay in very limited doses.

“I could go after I’m done at the Rosario’s,” Usnavi says. “Might be stuck with some Charlie Brown bullshit, though, I think all the good ones are gonna be long gone by now.”

“I’ll come with,” Ruben offers. “I’m sure we’ll at least be able to find an artificial one somewhere, even if it’s less of an impressive look.”

“Fake one’s probably better,” Vanessa says. “I’d feel bad for any tree that died just to end up with you two and your fucked-up idea of an impressive look.”

“Any tree’s a tree,” Usnavi shrugs. “And at least we can reuse a fake one next year.”

“Yeah, says Ruben, suddenly lightheaded. “Yeah, I guess we can.”

When did they all start talking under the assumption that they’re definitely going to last that long? He’d hoped, of course, he’d wanted, but apparently it’s just a such given that they don’t even need to discuss the idea that Ruben will be with them next year.

Maybe that should have been obvious before. It wasn’t.

***

It sticks in his head all the next morning, when he catches the train back to the heights with Usnavi so he can check on his plants while Usnavi sees Camila and Kevin.

Ruben will still be here this time next year. They’ll still be together. It seems so long away, but it's only the same amount of time he's been here. God, h e’s only been here a year. Or maybe he should say it like: he’s been here for a whole year. Almost two years since Jamaica, only two years since. Like he’s been here forever and like he only just got off the bus yesterday.

“Ruben!” someone up ahead coming in the opposite direction calls while he's thinking about how slippery the concept of a year is, just before he gets to his own building. He can tell from the bouncing mass of curls that it’s Carla, in a pair of exceptionally bright turquoise earmuffs and a puffy pink coat. She’s waving a stripy-gloved hand and doing a little jog-walk to come say hi to him. She's one of the few people who’ll actually stop him for a chat, and even though all Ruben’s talk with her is generally of the extremely small variety, he kind of enjoys the simplicity of it. “Hi!”

“Hey, Carla,” he greets her once she’s close enough. “Whatcha doing in this part of town?”

“Just hangin’ out with folk,” Carla says. “Been some places, going others. You?”

“Checking some stuff at home, then we’re going on a Christmas tree mission.”

“Bit late, ain’t it?” she says. “We always put ours up on the first, or as close to it as we can. You only get Christmas once a year, gotta make the most of it."

“Well, y’know. Been busy.”

Carla nods. “True. How’s Usnavi? I saw the video on the donation page. It’s nice he was so happy, Dani says Vanessa says he’s been feeling pretty low.”

Ruben smiles to himself. He’s maybe secretly watched the video several times whenever he needs a quick mood-boost: Usnavi babbling and giggling in overwhelmed gratitude, Vanessa laughing behind the camera. “He’s doing better. Doing pretty good.”

“And you’re good too?”

“Sure, I’m alright.”

“Only you got this look on your face like you could use a hug,” she tells him, which is an unexpected break away from their script. “You want one?

“Uhhh,” says Ruben, faintly alarmed. He hasn’t prepared a response for anything like that. Everyone in the part of Usnavi and Vanessa’s social circle that he thinks of as their adopted family knows at least the very basics of Ruben’s backstory by now, and the after-effects of it. There’s sometimes cautious affectionate arm-punches or fistbumps. There’s never really anything more, he’s never tried to seek anything more.

Does he really look like he wants a hug? He wasn’t feeling down about anything in particular, though he was definitely feeling deep about a lot of things. Maybe they’re the same expression. Plus Carla’s definitely just a natural hugger, a hundred percent, no matter who she’s talking to: she’d tried the very first time they’d been introduced and Ruben had instinctively ducked behind Usnavi to escape it. Carla looked wounded. Dani had given Ruben a frighteningly incisive look, then nudged Carla and made a face that Ruben couldn’t interpret but Carla seemed to get, because her sunny expression was right back and she just waggled her fingers in greeting instead. She hasn’t tried again since.

He’s not particularly close to her. He’s not particularly close to most people, come to think of it, but he especially doesn’t see Carla and Dani as often Benny, the Rosarios or Sonny since they live in the Bronx, and besides Carla with her bright, bright smile and bright, bright clothes just seems one of those people who operate in an entirely different plane of existence to Ruben.

But if things had only been slightly different when they’d met, would he have said the same about Usnavi with his red shirt and his wide, warm grin and excitable flailing chatter? And Carla’s somehow even less intimidating than Usnavi, staring patiently at him without commenting about how long it’s taking him to answer a fairly straightforward question. 

She’s not wrong, either.

“I could maybe use a hug,” he admits, to his own surprise, and Carla says “¡ _Wepa_!” and raises both her arms straight up with her fingers spread wide like hugging Ruben is an occasion to celebrate, before she brings them down to wrap around his waist. He tentatively puts his arms around her too.

Carla squeezes him and does a happy little side-to-side sway. Ruben contemplates his situation. It doesn’t feel awful, so that’s good. It does feel kind of awkward. Outside of family the only reference he’s got for this is Usnavi and Vanessa, and their whole pre-dating hug thing is definitely  _not_ what he’s aiming for now. Three seconds, right, that’s the appropriate amount of time for this, according to the internet? He forgot to start counting, but it’s definitely been more than that. Maybe that only applies to hello-hugs and not comfort ones? Either way, Carla doesn’t seem like she’s letting go yet.

“I like your cologne,” she tells him.

“Thanks,” he answers. That’s kind of a relief, he’s been wondering this whole time if it’s creepy to notice how someone smells, so at least if it is they’re both creepy. He’s not actively trying to, obviously, it’s just hard to avoid, Carla’s wearing about ten different kinds of hairspray and her curls are tickling his face. 

“Do you feel better now?” she asks eventually.

“…I actually do,” Ruben answers, still surprised.

“Great!” she says, pulling back and patting his cheek. “Okay. You’re a good hugger, but I got places to be. I’ll see you round, Ruben!”

And she heads off down the street with Ruben blinking after her in shock. He forgets to even say goodbye.

“Why’s everyone keep patting me all of a sudden?” he asks himself out loud. He doesn’t think he feels bad about it but…why? And also what the hell just happened in general? And what was that? And... _what_?

Take stock of his body's response: no panic, but there’s a pleasant restlessness in his brain like when he knows he’s about to start a project. He’s been here for almost a year. There’s people who have been making space for him, despite his hesitance and secrets and his lack of socialising, despite the fact he isn’t one of them. But Camila said he is, they all treat him like he is anyway. Vanessa had referred to them as family, herself and Usnavi and Ruben, which maybe means he's part of the other thing he thinks of as their family. He just got _hugged_. It was _nice_.

Ruben’s never going to be the centre of everything and doesn’t really want to be. But maybe he could think about making more space for friendship too.Things are different now, and he already found room he didn’t think he had inside him for Usnavi and Vanessa even back at the start, and Ruben’s so much more now that what he used to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [a/n: thanks for reading! please leave comments to encourage me to be less of a hopelessly slow updater!]


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